


Not Part of The Plan

by foxandbee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: A disgusting abuse of italics that's what, Famous Louis, Getting Together, Is this an AU?, It's not exactly reality, It's quite sweary, Louis' a bit of a diva, M/M, Ordinary Harry, POV Multiple, What is this?, i couldn't avoid the angst, i tried to avoid the angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:51:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxandbee/pseuds/foxandbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sometimes Louis hates Paul. Those times now extend to when Paul abandons him with strange boys who put frozen vegetables down their trousers. Louis gets the distinct feeling that he is going to spend the majority of his day snorting and rolling his eyes. But what else is new really? And then the door is closing behind them and One Direction are left alone with Harry Styles. This was not part of the plan. Louis should’ve been drunk by now.</em>
</p><p>One Direction are hired to keep 'their biggest fan' company on their day off and Louis is not at all happy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Louis

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not entirely sure what this even is to be honest and I know I shouldn't be starting yet another new fic but this just popped into my head and I kinda want to see where it goes.  
> I hope it makes someone smile.  
> As always, thanks for reading! :) xxx

Louis is this close. He is _this close_ to being done. He can already taste the day old pizza and slightly out-of-date beer that are just sitting there enticingly, waiting patiently in the fridge for Louis to stumble home and take them to bed with him. And once Louis is finished with his orgy of carbs and fat, he’s going to roll over and go to sleep and not wake up for _days_. Because One Direction finally, _finally_ , have some time off. Louis can’t even remember the last time they had some time off, what with a nine month world tour, a film, recording their third album and the _fucking endless_ amount of promotion that has entirely consumed the past year of his life. Did he mention the perfume? He forgot the perfume. There was a _fucking perfume_ involved too.

So yeah, to say that Louis is just slightly excited for a few weeks of no commitments is like saying that Miley Cyrus was only slightly controversial at the VMAs. Louis thinks that might’ve been one of the most hilarious moments of his life thus far. Rihanna’s reaction face is both the home- and lock-screen on his phone. He still gets a kick out of it every time he goes to send a text.

Louis’ plans for the next few weeks? Absolutely not a goddamn thing. Louis is going to sit at home doing nothing but eating and sleeping, and probably a great deal of masturbating too, if he’s honest. And only when he’s fed up of festering away behind closed doors will Louis emerge, revitalised and glorious, like a phoenix from the ashes, to go out with Niall and Liam and get spectacularly wankered.

His mum thinks his plan is a disgraceful waste of time. Louis thinks he’s a 21-year-old pop star that can do whatever the fuck he wants and if he wants to waste his time then he’ll fucking waste it as thoroughly as possible, thank you _very_ much. He didn’t share this opinion with his mum, obviously. She’d try and ground him and she’d probably succeed too, because although Louis is a 21-year-old pop star that can do whatever the fuck he wants, he’s also a shameless mamma’s boy.

So while Louis’ internal monologue may have taken a slightly dramatic turn, he can’t really find it within himself to care. Because Louis is _this close_.

He just needs to sit around for another half hour, forty-five minutes at the most, while Liam finishes up his solos in the recording booth. Curse Liam Payne and his incessant perfectionism. Louis would just leave but apparently Management want to talk to them about something before they go. If it’s about the anonymous source who tipped off the Sun that the CEO is actually an orangutan with a headset, Louis’ strategy will be to deny, deny, deny.

While waiting, Louis scrolls through twitter and gets into a heated debate with a fan over the authenticity of his bum. It’s just after he’s assured the fan that he _will_ do a live ultrasound if he has to, Kim Kardashian style, that Liam collects Louis and they combine forces to drag Niall out of the kitchen.

“What’s up, buttercup?” Louis plonks himself down in a squishy leather chair and kicks his feet up onto the desk their publicist is sitting at.

She regards him with barely concealed disdain but Louis doesn’t particularly care. One of his reasons for living is to piss this chick off as consistently as possible.

“I just wanted to remind you boys to get a good night’s sleep tonight and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for tomorrow,” she says with a smile.

And just hold the fuck up now.

“What do you mean ‘tomorrow’?” Louis asks in a dangerously calm, disconcertingly soft voice. Louis is like a snake. He’s all smooth and slippery until he’s leaping towards your jugular, fangs bared, and you won’t even know what’s hit you until the poison’s already set in.

“I _mean_ , tomorrow as in the day. The day you will be spending with a fan. The _entire_ day that you will be spending with your _biggest_ fan.” Oh, she’s absolutely loving this. She is positively glowing with the knowledge that she’s completely ruining Louis’ plans of having no plans. Sadistic _bitch_.

“No.”

Her evil little smirk only widens. “Why, Louis, what do you mean ‘no’?”

“I _mean_ , no. No, that is not happening. No, I refuse.” Louis’ working himself up into a Tommo Tantrum now and once he gets going there’s no telling when he’ll stop.

Liam knows this, which is why he intervenes. “I’m sorry, but we weren’t told about this. It was never in our itinerary and tomorrow is supposed to be our first day off in months.”

“I know, but sometimes even the best laid plans go astray.”

Louis rockets up out of his chair and stamps his foot. He’s aware he’s acting like a child but he doesn’t give a shit. “Don’t spout your fucking self-help bullshit at me. I was promised tomorrow off and I am taking tomorrow off and there’s nothing you or my biggest fucking fan can do about it.”

Now her smirk slides away and her eyes narrow at Louis. “Listen, Tomlinson, you’re not allowed to refuse. You can throw as many little hissy fits as you want but you are contractually obligated to show up tomorrow and if you don’t I’ll sue the pants off of you.”

Louis draws himself up to look as intimidating as his slightly-under-average stature will allow. “You won’t be getting your grubby paws anywhere near my pants.”

Then he whips around to face Liam and Niall. “Liam, do something!”

For the first time in possibly ever Liam looks like he’s struggling to contain himself. Even Niall appears uncharacteristically pissed, his eyes scrunched closed and his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do, Lou,” Liam says through gritted teeth.

So Louis goes home much angrier than was originally planned and attempts to drink his rage away, resolutely determined to turn up tomorrow as far from bright-eyed as his liver will physically allow.

*******

Anne Cox is one of the wealthiest women in London, which explains a lot when Louis thinks about it, because how else would she be able to freaking _rent_ One Direction for the day. Apparently she invented something, or owns something, or just does something in general, Louis doesn’t know, he doesn’t have the energy to concentrate on anything other than trying not to toss his cookies all over the back of the van. It feels as if all of his internal organs are trying their damned hardest to escape via his mouth. Paul didn’t even say anything when he picked Louis up this morning, just gave him The Disappointed Eyes.

Paul can fuck off. Management can fuck off too. The Satanic Publicist can fuck off. Anne Cox can fuck off and One Direction’s Biggest Fan can fuck right off as well.

Louis’ just a _tiny_ bit hungover.

Unfortunately, Liam and Niall don’t share Louis’ sentiments. “At least try and be civil to the poor girl, Lou. This isn’t her fault,” Liam pleads, cracking the Patented Payne Puppy Pout. Curse Liam Payne.

“Explain to me how this isn’t entirely her fault.”

“Management are the ones who organise our schedules. They could’ve said no, could’ve told them we were unavailable. But they didn’t,” Niall pipes up from inside a crisp packet. Louis hates it when Niall makes sense, he’s convinced it’s one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse.

“But I don’t wanna do this!”

“Yeah, well Tommo, sometimes you just gotta do shit you don’t wanna do.” Niall stuffs a handful of crisps into his mouth and that is that.

The property that the van pulls up to is not at all what Louis was expecting. It’s a relatively modest London townhouse, definitely in one of the nicer areas, but still just the same as any other house lining the block. It’s far from the sprawling mansion that Louis was envisioning. In fact, his own flat might even be worth a bit more. What kind of a rich person does Anne Cox think she is?

Louis’ even more surprised when a pretty woman dressed casually in dark jeans and a simple blouse answers the door. _Pleasantly_ surprised. He’d definitely go there.

“Hi boys, come on in, thank you so much for being here!” Louis, Liam, Niall and Paul are ushered in and Louis definitely wasn’t expecting that a house belonging to one of the richest families in London could feel so much like a _home_. The entrance hall opens up to the front sitting room on the left and the staircase on the right is lined with rows upon rows of photos. Louis spies a pair of scuffed brown boots by the door.

Following Anne through to the back of the house, the boys walk past a separate dining room, a downstairs bathroom and what might be a laundry room, and find themselves in a large, open plan kitchen. There’s a marble breakfast bar separating the main kitchen from another living space with a couch tucked into the corner and an old oak table set in front of French doors leading out onto a deck. It’s classy and impeccably decorated, but it also looks lived in, with well-loved cookbooks stacked haphazardly on a shelf and cat hair on the couch.

But Louis would still much rather spend his day in his own flat.

“Can I get you boys anything? Tea? Coffee? Some breakfast?”

“Tea, no milk, no sugar,” Louis replies instantly. Liam shoots him a look and he grudgingly tacks on a “please” at the end.

Anne hums as she potters around in the kitchen, and while it’s all very lovely and domestic, Louis wants to know what the fuck he’s _doing_ here.

“So, Mrs. Cox-”

Louis is immediately interrupted with “Oh honey, call me Anne.”

“Right.” He clears his throat and tries again. “So, _Anne_ , if you don’t mind me asking, what is it exactly that we’re here for today?”

Anne looks up from where she’s pouring out tea. “Oh! Did no one tell you?”

When she’s met with three blank stares she carries on. “Well, you see, it’s my son’s 18th birthday today but I have to fly over to the States for a charity gala, and his sister is studying abroad in France and his father hasn’t been around in years.”

Louis loves a good backstory as much as the next bloke, but he can’t really see where this is headed.

“Um, okay… So how do we fit in?”

“You’re his present, silly! He just adores you boys, he’s going to be so surprised!”

And, what? Louis was definitely, _really_ not expecting One Direction’s Biggest Fan to be male. It seems neither were Liam and Niall, if their wide-eyed, gaping expressions are anything to go by.

“Oh, that sounds so horrible of me to say you boys are his present! You aren’t strippers!” Louis gets the feeling Anne’s one of those new age, progressive mothers. “What I mean is that you’re the best of both worlds. This way, I know I’m getting him something he’ll love and he’ll have people to keep him company.”

No, Louis isn’t a stripper; he’s just a glorified babysitter. For an _18 year old_. On his day off. _Christ_ , he actually thinks he might prefer to take his clothes off instead. 

“I just feel so guilty leaving him here all alone. On his birthday. Alone on his 18th birthday! Oh god, I’m a horrible mother!”

To everyone’s surprise, Paul beats Liam over to Anne and puts a comforting arm around her shoulders. “You’re not a horrible mother, Anne. You’re doing the best you can in a sticky situation and you went to so much trouble to do it.” Is it his imagination or did Paul just shoot a look at Louis? Louis is indignant; he’s no _trouble_. Okay, yeah, no, even he has to snort at that one. “I’m sure he’s going to be absolutely ecstatic when he sees what you’ve done for him.”

“Oh, thank you, love. You’re so kind.” She looks up to Paul with a watery smile and _gross_ , old people flirting. This day is getting more unbearable by the second.

Anne gathers herself and then hands out tea for everyone and a croissant for Niall. “He’s just upstairs, probably still asleep. I’ll go get him then, shall I?” And she bustles her way out of the kitchen before anyone has time to give her an answer.

She only makes it as far as the bottom of the stairs though. “Harry!”

Silence.

“HARRY!”

“Ughhhh.” Ah, the kid speaks Louis’ language. That fact doesn’t make him want to be here anymore than before.

“Come on, love.”

“Whaa?”

“Time to get up!”

“ ‘s ma buffday.”

“I know that, who do you think was doing the birthing?” And _that is a mental image that should never accompany one’s morning cuppa._

“So if you know that then why won’t you let me _sleep_?” Louis finds himself rolling his eyes as this boy’s husky drawl wafts over him. He hopes that’s just his morning voice, Louis can’t listen to that all day.

“Because I need to be heading off soon and I’ve got a surprise for you. So haul that skinny butt downstairs. And wear something other than just pants.” No, don’t do that! _At least_ make this day worth Louis’ while.

There’s some further unintelligible grumbling and then the sound of a door upstairs being opened.

“And don’t wear socks on the hardwood floors,” Anne adds, yelling back over her shoulder as she reappears in the kitchen.

Louis hears faint footsteps on the stairs, some muttering about “can’t tell me what to do in my own house”, and then a rattling thud followed by a pained groan.

“Boy never learns,” Anne sighs.

Then a figure clad in a purple Jack Wills jumper with the hood drawn up comes shuffling into the room. He heads straight for the fridge and doesn’t look over to his left, so he doesn’t see the internationally famous boyband casually sipping tea in his kitchen. An expectant silence settles over the small group, but the boy doesn’t catch on.

This mutant of an 18 year old has to nearly fold himself in half in order to reach down and pull open the freezer. He bangs around in there for a bit before he straightens up with a bag of frozen peas held triumphantly aloft. He reaches behind, pulls up the hem of his hoodie and shoves the peas down the back of his trackie bottoms. Then he rummages in the fridge for the orange juice and starts chugging it straight from the carton. This one’s a charmer.

Louis has to dig his fingernails into his thighs as a way of physically restraining himself from saying something snarky. He can’t quite keep himself from coughing pointedly though.

The boy freezes with the juice carton still attached to his lips, and as he slowly turns around the hood falls away from his face.

Louis is met first with ridiculously soft looking curls, secondly with an enviably defined jaw (damn him) and thirdly with wide green eyes that look vaguely panicked. _Yeah, now you notice, buddy._

The boy ever so slowly puts the juice down on the counter and then clears his throat. “Mum, don’t be alarmed, but it’s possible I hit my head when I slipped on the stairs.”

Louis snorts and Anne starts positively cackling. “There’s nothing wrong with your head, darling!”

Harry still hasn’t blinked. “Right. Okay. So. One Direction are sitting in my kitchen and I’m standing here with frozen peas in my pants and this, right now, is reality?”

This time Louis is not alone in his snorting.

“Surprise!”

“Well, fuck.”

“Language!”

“Sorry mum.”

Anne envelops Harry in a hug and then pulls back to hold him at arms length. “Happy Birthday, sweetie! I know you said you were fine with me not being here but I just felt so awful about leaving you alone today so the boys are here to keep you company as my present to you.” She looks up at her son expectantly, hope and uncertainty brimming in her eyes.

Harry just stares. One Direction stare back. He’s either taking this news extremely well or really horribly.

“Is – Is it not okay?” Anne asks in a tiny little voice. And _goddamn it_ , if this kid makes his own mum cry Louis is going to have to slap the twat.

Harry seems to visibly shake himself and then he’s grabbing for his mum, squeezing her tight. Shame really, Louis is in a slapping mood today.

“Oh my god. _Oh my god_ , mum! Are you _kidding_ me? This is the greatest present ever! This is the best birthday ever! This is the most incredible thing _ever!_ ” Okay, we get the point. “I can’t believe this is happening!” Oh _Jesus_ , is this kid seriously tearing up? Louis rolls his eyes so hard they nearly fly out of his skull and escape into the garden.

Anne looks entirely too pleased with herself.

Liam, the ever-present shining beacon of good manners, stands up to go and shake Harry’s hand. “I’m Liam. It’s a pleasure to meet you Harry. Happy Birthday, mate.”

Niall follows suit and makes his own introductions which means, ugh. Louis is going to have to play nice. “Hiya, mate. Happy Birthday.” _See_ , Louis’ no heathen. Harry bites his lip when Louis shakes his hand and, well then. That’s an interesting development.

A car horn honks outside and Anne jumps away from talking to Paul. “Well, that’s me.” She turns to face Louis, Liam and Niall. “I’m sorry for leaving so abruptly, but thank you so much, really.”

“I should probably be heading off myself actually. Anne, can I help you with your suitcase?” He's smooth, this one.

Louis turns sharply to Paul. “What. You’re leaving us here?”

Paul eyes him quizzically. As does everyone else present. “Yes, I mean, you guys don’t really need me here.”

“But what if we get attacked!”

Paul looks pointedly around the kitchen. “Attacked by whom? You guys will be staying here all day, won’t you?” He addresses this last part at Harry.

Harry glances from Paul, to Louis, to his mother, and then back to Paul. “Um, yep.”

“See, just a quiet day in, Lou, nothing to worry about. In fact, that was exactly what you wanted.”

Sometimes Louis hates Paul. Those times now extend to when Paul abandons him with strange boys who put frozen vegetables down their trousers.

Harry accompanies his mum and Paul to the door, where he gets one last fierce hug and a whispered “Happy Birthday, angel.” Louis gets the distinct feeling that he is going to spend the majority of his day snorting and rolling his eyes. But what else is new really?

And then the door is closing behind them and One Direction are left alone with Harry Styles. This was not part of the plan. Louis should’ve been drunk again by now.


	2. Harry

Harry closes the door on his mother’s shameless flirting, _Jesus Christ_ , and leans his forehead against the smooth wood, trying to sort out the jumble of thoughts in his brain.

One freaking Direction is in his house. _Fuck_. Harry was not prepared for this.

He jumps violently when he feels a trickle of ice-cold water run down between his butt cheeks and ah, yes, the frozen peas. Possibly time to remove those. He pads back into the kitchen and dumps the packet back into the freezer drawer.

“What are you doing?” Harry turns around to find all three boybanders staring at him, but he’s not entirely sure which one spoke. They all kind of look similar and Harry wasn’t paying much attention when they introduced themselves and _Good Lord_ , he’s so hungover.

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ , you’re putting those vegetables back in the freezer. Those vegetables that are now very well acquainted with your arsehole. People might try to _eat_ them.” It’s the short, tan, curvy one who’s talking, and bitchy isn’t normally Harry’s type, but he can make exceptions. He’d definitely go there. With his mussed up hair and bleary eyes he looks kind of cute, kind of like an irritated kitten.

Harry can only shrug. “They’re fine, they’re in a plastic bag.”

“That’s rank.” Oh, kitty’s got claws. Harry is _really_ too hungover to be dealing with scratchy things right now.

“ ‘Mkay.” Harry pulls up a stool at the breakfast bar and tips forward, flopping down face first onto the countertop. The cool marble soothes his pulsating headache and Harry _loves_ the breakfast bar. “Thank you guys for coming, really, I appreciate it, but you can leave whenever you want.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Can anyone else in this band talk? Or do the other two just communicate through song and interpretive dance? Because Little Twink’s high, raspy voice is starting to grate on Harry’s nerves. Maybe Harry should try to remember their names, but thinking too hard makes him feel nauseated and Little Twink is a perfectly fitting summary really.

Harry turns his face so that his cheek is all squished up into his eye, but at least this way he can properly look at the people he’s talking to. On second thoughts, that may not be such a good thing, because Little Twink is standing there looking all indignant, with his little hands on his little hips and his little eyebrows trying to scale Mount Quiff.

“That sounded like I was kicking you out, didn’t it? ‘M sorry, that was rude. What I mean is, like, you can go back home if you want to. It’s fine. It’s kind of obvious you don’t want to be here.” Harry raises his own eyebrows at Little Twink pointedly. Or it would be pointed, if one of them wasn’t trapped between his face and a hard place.

Little Twink looks vaguely sheepish, flushing slightly and spluttering for a moment and my God, did Harry just render him speechless?

“I don’t – But – But it’s your birthday! And you’re our _biggest fan_.” Harry’s never really been that lucky.

“Yeah, about that – ” Harry cuts himself off and ponders for a moment, trying to find the gentlest way in which to phrase what he needs to say next. And he _needs_ to say it. He can’t have anyone other than his mum thinking he’s a _One Direction_ fan. It’s against his moral code. Also, his friends would probably shank him.

But then Harry remembers that subtlety has never been his strong point (he _did_ dress up as Miley Cyrus for a party last week, nipple pasties and all, and he _fucking rocked it_ ), so he decides to just tell it like it is.

“I’m not really your biggest fan. Or any sized fan at all actually. Maybe fun-sized, I need to think on it. I mean, your music isn’t really my style, but I could get behind the colour coordination you guys seem to have going on. Oh but now I’m rambling, sorry.” Little Twink and Puppy Face look properly stunned, whereas Irish Blondie is making a face that could be loosely translated to _that makes so much more sense._

Then the peace of the kitchen is well and truly shattered by an exploding Twink.

“If you’re not even a fan then _what the bloody fuck are we doing here?_ ” Harry does some quick mental calculations, factoring in distance, speed and time, and then shifts slightly to his left so that he’s in between Little Twink and the knife drawer.

“You're here because my mum _thinks_ I’m a fan. And you all saw her face! She felt so guilty for leaving me and she was so excited to surprise me and so happy when she thought I loved her present. I couldn’t just destroy that for her!”

Little Twink just stares at him, long and hard, and then flops backwards onto the couch with his arms crossed. Harry is truly surprised he’s managed to shut the kid up.

Then Puppy Face speaks up and Harry’s brain wants to start crying. But it doesn’t have any tear ducts so Harry can only sigh and accept his fate. At least Puppy Face’s voice isn’t annoyingly whiny.

“Why does your mum think you’re a fan though?”

Ah, Harry was hoping to avoid this question. “Well, I _did_ go to some extreme lengths to get my hands on One Direction concert tickets a couple months back. But that was admittedly less about you guys, no offense, and more about getting into Caroline Flack’s pants.” Irish Blondie nods knowingly; he knows what’s up. “And it’s not exactly like I could tell my mum that, could I?”

Puppy Face nods his head, then shakes his head, then seems to give up and joins Little Twink on the couch. Irish Blondie asks Harry if he has any muffins, so Harry gets to work on a full English Fry Up with peppermint tea, his failsafe hangover cure.

“Well.” Harry looks up from frying bacon to find Little Twink once again standing with his hands on his hips. “If we’re not needed here then I’m leaving.”

Puppy Face grabs him by the waistband of his unlawfully tight jeans and pulls him back down onto the couch. “You’re not going anywhere, Louis.” Ah hah! Louis! One down, two to go.

“But _why not_ , Liam?” Come on Irish Blondie, what’s your real name?

“Because Harry’s mum paid us to spend the day with him.”

Harry feels the urgent need to butt in and defend his honour. “I do actually have friends of my own, you know. I’m not a complete loser.”

“See! Harry is a perfectly capable little 18 year old who has his own perfectly capable little friends and _we don’t need to babysit him_.” Harry thinks it’s a bit rich for _Louis_ to be calling anyone else ‘little’.

“But she’s already paid us, Lou! We can’t just take her money and not earn it. That’d be so wrong!”

Louis mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “curse Liam Payne.”

“Fine, that’s alright, so we won’t take the money. I mean it’s not like we need it. We’ll just give it back.”

“No! No, you can’t do that! Then my mum will ask why you returned the money and then I’ll have to explain that I don’t actually like you guys.” Louis glares and Harry’s hand flies out to cover the knife drawer. “No! I mean, it’s not that I don’t _like_ you guys, I don’t even _know_ you guys, what I mean is – like – it’s kind of – _The point is_ that’d crush her and I don’t want to crush my mum. Please don’t crush my mum, Louis. _Please_.” Harry clasps his hands together and makes his eyes go wide and pouts his bottom lip and just generally tries to make himself look as helpless as possible.

Louis growls at him but sinks further into the couch and Harry takes an imaginary victory lap around the kitchen. Harry imagines that Irish Blondie would join in and Liam would high five him and Louis would be the silver medalist who scowls on the podium.

“Look, seriously guys, you can go, it’s fine.”

“No, Harry, we can’t go. We’re not taking your mother’s money and doing nothing in return. It’s immoral.”

“Well maybe _Harry_ doesn’t want us here, Liam. Did you think of that? Maybe he’s got plans of his own to attend to?”

Everyone looks expectantly at Harry and Harry thinks about the grand scheme he’s been planning for weeks. He can’t back out now, he doesn’t _want_ to back out now, so he can’t very well stay home to babysit his babysitters. But maybe… maybe he could bring them with him. He could definitely use the extra help. Although he can't foresee Louis lifting a single dainty finger.

Harry looks Louis up and down, taking in his blindingly white scoop neck top, his black skinnies rolled up above the ankles and his spotless red Vans, and tries to picture him covered in paint. Tries to picture the complete outrage expressed in every feature of his delicate little face. He can’t see it. But now he desperately wants to.

“I have already made plans actually.” Louis beams triumphantly. “But you guys are welcome to tag along.” Liam smiles and claps his hands and Louis’ entire face falls. Harry tries his absolute hardest to stop the seal-bark but his hand is just a fraction too late to smother it. Louis glares daggers at him.

Oh, this is going to be _so_ interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had originally planned for this chapter to be a little longer but then as I was writing it _a mini-tornado hit the library I was in!!!_ (because, yes, I was technically supposed to be studying, but everyone needs breaks right? Three hour breaks, am I right?) I wasn't even aware we had mini-tornadoes where I come from. _And then part of the roof caved in and we all had to be evacuated and it was all drama drama drama. It was crazy!_ So in all the chaos I might've forgotten where I was going with this chapter, slightly. But I hope you enjoy it anyway! Thanks for reading! xxx


	3. Louis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really quite sweary. I don't know what it is but when I write from Louis' perspective I just feel the need to curse. _A lot._

Louis is absolutely _fuming_ and he blames it all on Harry _fucking_ Styles. Maybe they wouldn’t be in this situation if bloody Liam didn’t have such a tightly wound moral compass, but Louis can’t even begin to imagine a universe in which Liam Payne wasn’t a model citizen, so no. Everything bad about this day is definitely Harry _fucking_ Styles’ fault.

Louis should have just insisted that they return the money and be on their merry way but _no_ , Harry _fucking_ Styles sucked him in. Louis staunchly maintains that he gave in because he is far too kind-hearted to upset Harry’s mum, and not because Harry looked so pretty begging. Louis does not find Harry _fucking_ Styles even remotely attractive because he hates Harry _fucking_ Styles for ruining his non-plans.

“This is utter bullshit,” Louis huffs. Harry _fucking_ Styles is currently upstairs getting ready and Louis, Liam and Niall are lounging around in the kitchen waiting for him, the latter still working his way through an enormous stack of pancakes.

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Lou,” Niall garbles through a mouthful of butter and maple syrup.

“I’m never melodramatic,” Louis snaps back.

Niall nearly brains himself on the microwave he’s laughing so hard. Then he starts actually choking and Louis feels the _teeniest_ bit of satisfaction before Liam steps in and begins thumping Niall’s back.

“We’ve talked about this Ni, this is why we don’t snort at Lou with our mouths full.”

Idiots. Louis is surrounded by idiots.

Once Niall has taken two puffs of his inhaler he happily dives back into his pancakes. “Seriously, Lou, you need to chill out. It’s really not that bad. Harry seems perfectly nice; he’s fucking aces at cooking and he made us all a bloody brilliant brunch. You just need to think about today as an adventure, yeah? Who knows where it’ll lead us! You might even crack a smile, God forbid.”

Louis resents what Niall is insinuating; he’s jovial, he smiles all the time. Or, well, he’s been known to smirk on occasion. Whatever.

He rolls his eyes. “I don’t _need_ a fucking adventure. I had big plans for today, before Harry _fucking_ Styles ruined them.”

“First thing: you _really_ need to stop calling him Harry fucking Styles,” Niall says, jabbing his fork at Louis for emphasis. “Second thing: _come on_. Louis, you had fuck all planned for today. If I know you, and I do, because I’ve spent almost 365 straight days with you, you would’ve spent today eating, yelling at 12 year olds on Xbox Live, and furiously wanking.”

“ _Well_.” Harry chooses that precise moment to sweep back into the kitchen. “Fuck if that isn’t a disturbing mental image. Do you often get yourself off to the sound of 12 year olds playing Counterstrike, Louis?”

“That depends, _Harry_ , do you often get yourself off to canvas shopping bags and ironic t-shirts?” Louis snarks back with a sickly sweet smile. He’s kind of proud of that one actually. And does fake smiling count as jovial? Because he also does a lot of that.

Harry just looks confused. “Erm, what?”

Can no one keep up with Louis’ wit? Really? “I’m referencing the fact that you’re a dirty great _hipster_.” He pronounces it like a curse word, scandalised, like he doesn’t spend 68% of his internal monologue swearing.

But it’s true. Harry is a hipster. He’s _such_ a fucking hipster that Louis is surprised he doesn’t live on Bondi Beach, making YouTube videos for a living and crocheting beanies in his spare time. He’s wearing black skinny jeans so tight that Louis doubts he’ll ever be able to have children. Although maybe it’d be in humanity’s best interests if Harry is unable procreate and populate the world with tiny hipster babies. The black skinny jeans have been ripped and patched up with leather swatches, and they’re paired with the scuffed brown boots from the front door and two flannel shirts. Fucking _two_ flannel shirts. And that’d be fine if Harry was layering up, it is a bit chilly out today, but he’s not because _both_ of the fucking _two_ flannel shirts are left half unbuttoned, gaping open and exposing Harry’s chest, and that is _not okay_. It is _not okay_ because Harry has a massive black moth tattooed smack bang in the middle of his torso. Louis takes deep breaths through his nose.

“A moth, Styles? _A moth_?”

Harry looks down at his stomach. “It’s a butterfly actually.”

“Oh my god. _Oh my. God._ ”

Harry looks honestly so bewildered, as if he doesn’t understand how offensive his entire person is to Louis right now.

“What? What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

“Nothing, you look perfectly fine, Harry,” Niall cuts in. “Louis just has a weird obsession with what he calls ‘the miscreant youth.’ Ignore anything and everything he says, that’s what we do.”

Louis takes his head out of his hands to glower. “Thanks, Niall.”

“Niall! I knew it started with an N,” Harry mutters under his breath.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You just said something.”

“Did I?” Harry hums like he’s thinking back, trying to remember.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Louis moans for the third time in as many minutes. “I’m spending the day with a certifiable crazy person.”

Harry walks over to him with a sympathetic pout and squeezes Louis’ shoulder. “You’ll be alright.” Then he props his elbow up on the top of Louis’ head and transfers his weight to one leg, crossing his ankles, as if he’s leaning against a fence post. “Just breathe through it, little one.”

Louis launches himself at Harry.

*******

It takes five minutes for Liam to pull Louis of off Harry, the entire time of which Harry spends giggling, as if Louis’ cute and not psychotic.

Then he just gets up from the floor, dusts himself off and beams at everyone, like it was a perfectly normal occurrence for a popstar to attack him in his kitchen.

Louis is completely baffled as to how Harry can remain so constantly unbothered by everything Louis throws at him. He wants to know what it takes to ruffle Harry’s feathers, how far he can push before Harry snaps. He thinks he’s just found his mission for the day.

When they walk into the garage and find a black Range Rover Louis literally clasps his hands together and sends prayers of thanks heavenwards. Harry catches him and chuckles.

“You alright over there, Louis?”

“Yeah, fine. I nearly passed out with relief, is all. I honestly thought you’d make us ride around on bicycles.”

“Not today, unfortunately,” Harry pouts. “We’ve got some important things to transport and a couple of stops to make on our way.”

“On our way to where exactly?” Liam questions suspiciously.

Harry merely smiles that same sunny smile. “All in good time, lads.”

They pile into the car, Liam and Niall in the back and Louis riding shotgun next to Harry. He tells himself it’s because he needs the proximity in order to most effectively take the piss.

When Harry starts the ignition the sound system kicks in and the car is immediately filled with what sounds like anguished wailing.

“ _What the fuck_ is this? Are you serious, Harry? Are you honestly so fucking _indie_ that you listen to _yodelling_?”

Harry bursts out laughing. “Louis! This isn’t yodelling!”

“Are you certain? Because it sure sounds like it belongs on a mountain top where nothing but goats can be subjected to it.”

“This is Matt Corby. This is genius, Louis.”

“Well your genius is making my ears cry.”

Harry just sighs and shakes his head like Louis is a toddler who is refusing to get in the bath. He turns out onto the street and then passes over his iPod.

“Here, how about you play DJ?” He says, tone just verging on the edge of condescending, talking like Louis is a toddler too. Louis hates Harry _fucking_ Styles.

_Bloody hipster twat_ Louis thinks viciously as he scrolls through song after song after song, all from artists he’s never heard of before and probably will never hear of again. He _finally_ finds one song he recognises, Tennis Court, but when he selects it it’s not Lorde’s voice that comes floating through the speakers but some fucker called _The Kite String Tangle_.

_Jesus fucking Christ._

Luckily, Harry is soon pulling up to the curb and switching the engine off. He undoes his seatbelt and swivels around so that he’s addressing everyone.

“Alright lads, this is just a quick stop, shouldn’t take me long. You can just chill out in the car.”

“Can you bring back snacks?” Niall says hopefully.

Harry smiles indulgently. “Sure. Liam, you want anything?”

“Something to drink would be great, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“ ‘Course it’s no trouble.” Harry turns to face Louis, who is studiously ignoring him and scowling down at some long-haired dude’s emotional, black-and-white cover art. “And for you, Little Twink?”

He freezes immediately, like he knows he’s just made one _massive mistake_.

Louis drops the iPod. He slowly rotates his head so that he’s staring at Harry with his eyes in slits. “ _What_ did you just call me?”

“I’m really sorry, I- ”

“Little. Twink. _Little Twink_. You fucking better not have just called me _Little Twink_ or _I swear to God_ I will chop off your-”

Harry brings up one of his massive hands and puts it over Louis’ mouth.

Louis is dumbstruck. He can’t even slap Harry’s hand away. He just sits there, staring at Harry staring back at him.

“I really am sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to say that out loud. It’s just, um, well it’s kind of what I call you in my head. Like a nickname, yeah?”

Louis bites Harry’s fingers. Hard. Harry’s quick to pull his hand away, cradling it to his chest and watching Louis with wary eyes.

“Oh yeah? Well I’ve got a nickname in my head for you too. You wanna know what it is? It’s Harry _fucking_ Styles,” Louis spits.

Louis can see Harry shaking, trying to hold in the laughter, and if he so much as _breathes_ too loudly his birthday will also become is dying day. Louis will make sure of it.

“That’s, um, that’s really original, Louis.”

“ _Fuck off_ , Harry _fucking_ Styles.”

“As you wish, Little Twink.” And then he’s gone before Louis can maim him, hopping out of the car and striding off around the corner.

Louis turns around in his seat to stare disbelievingly at Liam and Niall. “You just heard that, right?”

“I’m sorry, heard what? I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring sexual tension,” Liam smirks.

Niall whips his head to the side to look at Liam with a mixture of awe, incredulity and pride. “My little boy is growing up!” he crows, wiping a fake tear from his eye, and then he’s jumping on Liam, kissing him all over his face.

Surrounded. By. _Idiots_.

Ten minutes later Harry comes sauntering back around the corner with a plastic shopping bag in each hand. He seems very pleased with himself so Louis mumbles, “Planet killer” just to knock him down a peg.

“All my canvas bags were in the wash, sorry.” It doesn’t work.

One of the bags is filled to the brim with the requested snacks and beverages, and the other is filled with glasses, hats and…fake hair, what?

“Um, Harry?” Liam says, looking up from the bag to scrunch his face up at Harry in the rearview mirror. “What’s all this?”

“Those, lads, are our disguises.”

“Our disguises?” Louis echoes.

“Yep, and we’ll need them next stop. So suit up, boys!” Harry exclaims cheerfully, like he’s used to buying fake moustaches on the regular.

Their next stop turns out to be in a semi-industrial area only a few minutes drive away. Harry leads the boys out of the car and once again around the corner, looking ridiculous in sunglass, a set of false teeth and a goatee, with his curls stuffed under a beanie. Niall’s gained a beard and glasses as thick as bottle bottoms, his hood pulled over his head, while Liam sports a fetching mullet wig with a baseball cap thrown on top. Louis’ just covered his entire face with a ski-mask. He can’t risk being recognised with these freaks.

Louis has no fucking clue why he’s wandering around London in ‘disguise’ and the reason doesn’t become any clearer when Harry ushers them into a hardware store.

“Uh, Harry, it’s not like we’re going to get mobbed by teenage girls in a fucking _Homebase_. So why exactly are we dressed up like fucktards?” Louis hisses.

“Because,” is the only answer Harry deigns to give. He spins on his heel and claps his hands, like he’s a fucking tour guide in the Louvre or some shit.

“Alright boys, we’re on a mission and time’s a tickin’.” Oh God, he is literally a 65 year old art historian. “Niall and Liam, can you go hunt down six black tarpaulins, a nail gun and some electricians tape, please? Louis, you’re with me.”

While Liam looks confounded, Niall looks positively ecstatic, like buying mysterious DIY equipment is the best thing to happen to him _ever in the history of time and space and chocolate_. He grabs Liam and together they skip off down the aisle labeled Power Tools. Louis pulls out his phone, ready to dial 999, because _that_ is a disaster just waiting to happen.

Harry turns and heads in the other direction, towards a counter with a massive Special Order sign hanging overhead. All Louis can do is trot after him wondering _what the fuck_ his life has become.

“Hiiii,” Harry drawls to the salesclerk behind the counter, who’s eyeing an electric drill like he wants to take it to his own head. Louis wouldn’t blame the poor sod. “I’m here to pick up an order for John Smith.”

The salesclerk does a double take when he notices Harry’s plastic looking teeth and Louis hovering slightly behind him wearing a full balaclava in the middle of the day. Not shifty _at all_. But then he just shrugs likes he’s seen weirder and wanders off into the storeroom. That’s concerning.

He comes back with two massive boxes, which rattle ominously as he dumps them on the counter.

“Thanks,” Harry grins, significantly less charming with yellow cheese teeth. The salesclerk just shrugs again.

“Could you grab the top box for me, Louis?”

“If you seriously expect me to _lift_ things then you actually need real life help.”

“Just to the checkout desk, okay, then I’ll get Liam to do the manly stuff.”

Louis splutters, outraged. He is the very essence of all things manly, _fuck you very much_. He grabs the top box, heaves, and stalks off back towards the front of the store, hoping that the wobbling of his knees is imperceptible.

Liam and Niall are waiting for them at the checkout, playing with the nail gun, Niall using it as a machine gun while Liam attempts the back bend from the Matrix. Louis drops his box on the counter, spins around and snatches the nail gun away.

“Fucking children, honestly.”

“Aw, come on, Lou. We were just messin’ around, havin’ a bit of fun.”

“How much fun do you reckon you’ll have when one of you is missing an eye on the next album cover?”

Niall pouts at him and Harry snickers. Louis growls at the world in general and crosses his arms tight over his chest, glaring at a display of outdoor heaters. Then he feels warm arms wrap around him from behind and he sinks back into Liam’s chest.

“Come on, Boobear. Lighten up a bit, try to enjoy yourself. When’s the last time we did _anything _without it being planned six months in advance? This could be one of those epic stories you tell your grandkids, if you just let it,” Liam murmurs lowly into his ear, rubbing Louis’ belly. “If you don’t want to have fun for you, then will you have fun for me? Please? I worry about you sometimes.”__

Louis closes his eyes and sighs. But he nods nonetheless, bumping his head against Liam’s and squeezing the hands around his waist. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I’m asking for, Boo,” Liam smiles, smudging a kiss to Louis’ temple.

Louis opens his eyes to find Harry watching them, but he turns away to pay before Louis can catch the look on his face.

*******

They don’t talk when they get back in the car. Niall and Liam goof off in the back, singing along to the radio and taking selfies for Twitter, while Harry seems lost in his own thoughts, staring out at the road ahead, and Louis shuts down, dosing against the window.

When he wakes up an hour and a half later they’re on the motorway, heading north. Louis stretches and cracks his back, aching from being slumped against the door.

“Where’re we going?” Louis asks through a yawn.

Harry glances across at him then looks back out the windshield. “You’ll see.” Still with the fucking secrecy then.

Twenty minutes later they’re exiting the motorway and heading into a small town. They drive straight through, the scenery fading from the town proper to the outskirts, the outskirts to fields with farmhouses dotted across them. The last shed disappeared behind them fifteen minutes ago when they turn onto a dirt track.

“This isn’t the part where you slaughter us, dismember our corpses and then bury us in the woods, is it?” Louis tries to laugh, but it comes out nervous and too high.

Harry only hums.

Louis glances frantically behind him to see that Liam and Niall are passed out along the backseat.

“I mean, I’m just being a twat, right? You’d never do that. Right?”

Harry looks over at Louis, his face void of all expression. “What makes you think that?”

“Because – Because you couldn’t. You’d never get away with it.” Louis’ voice shakes and his palms start sweating where they’re gripping at the leather upholstery.

“It’d actually be pretty easy to get away with it, when you think about it,” Harry muses. “You guys didn’t come with me when I bought the disguises, and then we were in disguise when we went into the hardware store. I parked around the corner both times. I used a fake name and cash to buy the equipment, and no one even knows where you boys are right now. And seriously, what did you think I’d be doing with tarpaulins, electrical tape and a _nail gun_?”

Harry flicks a switch and all the car doors lock.

Louis scrambles for his phone but Harry snatches it out of his reach before he can unlock it. “Uh uh uh, Little Twink,” Harry tuts.

There’s nothing left for Louis to do but scream at the top of his lungs.

Niall and Liam jerk awake in the backseat, shocked and disoriented. They start shouting at Louis, asking him what the fuck is going on, and all hell breaks loose. That is until Louis notices that the car has stopped moving and Harry is leaning forward, slumped over the wheel, shaking the entire vehicle with the force of his laughter.

Louis, Liam and Niall can only watch on as Harry sits there howling, slapping at his thigh as tears stream down his face. It takes him a very, very long time to regain control of himself and when he does he’s hiccupping and gasping for air.

“What the bloody fuck was that about?” Niall demands.

“Louis – thought – I’d – kidnapped – you – all,” Harry pants out. “That I was – bring you out here – to chop you into tiny pieces.”

The car is completely silent. Until Niall snorts.

Then Louis yells, “ _Motherfucker!_ ” and catapults himself over the gear shift, hitting at every part of Harry he can get his hands on.

Harry just sits there and takes it, giggling helplessly, until both boys are left breathless, gazing into each other’s eyes as Louis straddles Harry’s lap. They stay there, suspended, until Liam coughs in the back seat.

“Do you guys want us to leave or…”

And Harry laughs again, sharp and loud.

Louis throws himself back into his seat and wraps his arms securely around his middle.

“I _hate_ you, Harry _fucking_ Styles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentioned in this chapter:  
> If you didn't get the BONDI HIPSTERS reference that's fine, it's pretty obscure. But if you want to know what I'm on about then check this out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4n6OVoyYQ)  
> Matt Corby (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpFG7DdjTbo)  
> The Kite String Tangle (http://soundcloud.com/thekitestringtangle) Scroll down for Tennis Court. And maybe check out Given The Chance if you've, er, got the chance? It's what I listened to as I was writing this chapter.
> 
> Other than that, I hope you enjoyed! xxx


	4. Harry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It really should not have taken me this long to write this chapter. But I got a bit stuck and then I got sick and then I broke my toe and the following 4000 words of whatever is the result of all that. So. Sorry if it's not the greatest. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless xxx

When they pull up at their final destination Louis is still seething in the passenger seat and Harry is still breaking into bouts of spontaneous sniggering. He sees Louis’ mouth open and then snap shut again, like his immediate impulse was to say something scathing but then he remembered he’s supposed to be ignoring Harry. That only makes Harry chuckle more.

Before anyone has time to question why he brought the world’s hottest boyband to a dilapidated old stable in the middle of nowhere three thumps echo off the hood of the car. He looks up and finds Zayn grinning at him through the windshield. Harry reacts instinctively and grins right back. When Zayn grins, everyone grins. It’s unavoidable. It’s like the sympathetic nervous system kicks in and one’s facial muscles have moved before their brain has even registered what’s happening. Harry’s convinced Zayn could take over the world with nothing but his shiny shiny teeth and the two of them have had very long, very digressive, very drunk conversations about said metaphorical coup. Zayn always insists that he’ll only use his powers for good and not evil, the colossal comic nerd that he is, at which point Harry likes to remind him that he doesn’t _actually have_ any powers, just an atypical face.

Zayn opens the driver’s door and physically pulls Harry from the vehicle and into a bone-crushing hug.

“Happy 18th, mate!” Zayn exclaims and kisses him on the ear.

Harry wraps his arms around Zayn’s waist and tries to squish him as thoroughly as possible.

Because Harry loves Zayn. Harry loves Zayn a lot a lot _a lot_. He’s known Zayn ever since he was afraid of the bigger kids on his first day of secondary school and he stumbled into the library in the hopes of avoiding any and all social contact. He wandered around aimlessly, tripping over his too big leather school shoes, until he discovered scrawny limbs and messy black hair tucked into a corner with an iPod. Harry asked the boy what he was listening to and the boy replied with Sean Paul. Harry mimed throwing up and the boy threw a book at him. It was a bonding experience.

And ever since then Harry and Zayn have been friends, best friends. Even when they both got inexplicably popular for seemingly no reason except puberty, they clung to each other like sleeping otters.

Literally clung. The two have always had a very tactile relationship, and they’ve become _very physical_ on a number of occasions when they’ve both been single and horny and a little bit high.

So now Harry decides to be a little shit, simply because he can, and bites Zayn’s neck.

“Ow!” Zayn shoves Harry away from him and claps a hand to his neck where a lovely shade of purple is starting to blossom. “You prick, what was that for?”

“It’s my party and I’ll bite if I want to,” Harry replies primly.

Zayn snorts. “You are such an incredible loser. Why do I hang out with you?”

“Because I know all of your secrets. It’s why my hair’s so big.” Fact.

“ _Jesus_. Stop quoting shit and let’s go see what we’re working with.”

“Okay Zaynie!” Sometimes Harry feels like he reverts back to a twelve year old when the two of them are together. It’s one of the things he loves most about Zayn.

Zayn slings an arm around his shoulder and they head in the direction of the stable. They only make it a few meters before they’re stopped short.

“So we’ll just sit here and twiddle our thumbs all day then, shall we?” an acerbic little voice calls out.

Harry had momentarily forgotten the bundle of sarcastic joy that was sulking in his passenger seat.

They turn back around and Zayn’s eyebrows nearly shoot straight off his forehead.

“Uh, yeah. I brought some, erm… people.” Because what are One Direction to Harry exactly? They’re not friends, they’re hardly even acquaintances, because they only met each other four hours ago. He’d consider Louis a sparring partner, maybe.

Louis arches one dainty eyebrow at Harry’s introduction.

“Yeah, I can see that, Haz. Since when do you know One Direction?”

Harry raises his own eyebrows at Zayn. And at the rate with which facial hair is flying around out here, soon no one is going to have any eyebrows left.

“Since when _do you_ know One Direction?”

“Oh, um, I – well I think at this point everyone in the world knows of One Direction, Haz. They’re kind of hard to avoid?”

“Right,” Harry replies slowly. He’s too distracted to pay attention to conversation because he thinks that, for the first time in six whole years, Zayn might possibly be _blushing_.

“ _Well_?” Louis demands. He peels his eyes away from where Zayn is most definitely _blushing_ to look at Louis. Louis who is tapping his little foot and eyeing Zayn up and down appreciatively.

Harry snaps into action. “Right! Sorry. Boys, this is Zayn Malik, my bestest mate in the whole world.” He wraps his arm around Zayn’s neck and pokes his index finger into the bruise he left. Zayn slaps his hand away without even looking.

Harry gestures to each of the other boys in turn. “Zayn, meet the illustrious One Direction, otherwise known as Niall, Liam and Little Twink.”

He grins broadly when Louis clenches his jaw and glowers at him, satisfied that he has all of Louis’ attention again.

“Lovely to meet you Zayn.” Liam steps forward to shake Zayn’s hand, as does Niall. Louis stays stock still with his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“Um, sorry about Louis, he’s in a bit of a strop at the moment,” Liam whispers.

“I am not in a strop, Liam!” Louis snaps.

Literally everyone gives him _a look_.

“Whatever. Can someone please explain to me what the fuck we’re doing at this decrepit hellhole?”

“This, my _little_ friend,” he can’t help himself, he honestly just can’t stop, “is where the party’s at!” says Harry, with a grand, sweeping, _ta-da!_ motion.

Louis just gapes at him. Then he honest to god pinches the bridge of his nose and deep breathes. “Oh, my god. Are you legitimately so _fucking hipster_ that you are seriously having a party in a _fucking barn_?”

“It’s a stable actually.”

“What fucking difference does it make? Either way horses have pissed in it!”

“You worried about your shoes, princess?” Harry says with a sympathetic pout.

Louis curls his lip back over his teeth and actually snarls at Harry like an angry Pomeranian. Then he spins on his heel and stomps his way back over to the car, climbing inside and slamming the door behind him.

Harry should probably feel upset about that, but he got a really nice eyeful of Louis’ arse as it _jiggled_ with the force of his dramatic exit, so he’s not complaining.

Turning back he sees Zayn looking shocked, Niall looking vaguely amused and Liam looking like the mortified mother he claims not to be, hand over his mouth and all.

“Harry, I am so _so_ sorry about that.”

“It’s alright. I may have deserved that.” He does feel slightly guilty, although probably not guilty enough because _Louis’ arse_.

“It possibly wasn’t the best idea to call him a princess, that’s true. But he’s been horrible to you all day and I just don’t know why.”

“You mean he’s not normally such a diva?” Zayn snorts disbelievingly.

“Well, um, he can be a bit of a handful sometimes, yes,” Liam admits ruefully, rubbing at the back of his neck. “But he is being more difficult than usual today. He’s probably just pissed off because today was supposed to have been our first day off in about three months.”

Now Harry does feel really guilty. “Shit, and you were forced to spend the day with me. Fuck, I’m sorry, I’ll drive you all back to London right now.”

Niall grabs his elbow as he starts to make his way towards the car. “Harry, seriously mate, it’s fine. Louis will have a little tantrum, have a bit of a sulk in the car, and then hopefully he’ll pull his head out of his arse and get over it.”

Harry just gives Niall a dubious look.

“Alright, so he probably won’t get over it. But you have the keys to the car. So he’ll either be bored to death or suffocate, but either way he’ll be forced to come out sooner or later.” Niall seems perfectly content with these options. “I, personally, am having a whale of a time today! It’s fuckin’ adventurous and shit, yeah? And I’m really curious as to why exactly you guys are planning a party here.”

Harry perks up again and Zayn grins. Niall and Liam grin too. No one is immune.

“This, lads, is our very own club!”

“I thought it was a stable,” Liam pipes up.

“Well, yes, technically at the moment it is a stable,” Zayn concedes. “ _However_ , by the time we’re done with it, it’ll be the hottest club for miles, if only for one night.”

“Pretty sure it’ll be the _only_ club for miles. So you won’t exactly have much competition,” Liam smirks.

“Irrelevant,” Zayn sniffs back, although his haughtiness is kind of ruined when his cheek twitches with a smile.

“So let me just get this straight,” Niall cuts in. “You’re planning on spending the day of your 18th birthday renovating a tumble-down stable in the middle of nowhere so that you can turn it into a quasi-club for your party, when in reality you’re now perfectly legal to have an actual party inside of an actual club?”

Well, when he puts it like _that_ , it seems a whole lot lamer than when Harry dreamed it up in his head.

“Erm, yeah. That’s the gist of it. Essentially.”

“Sounds fuckin’ epic!” Niall claps his hands and rubs his palms together, a wicked grin on his face. “Let’s get crackin’!”

He leads the way into the stable tugging Zayn along with him and Liam falls into step beside Harry.

“Listen, Harry, about Louis,” he begins, but Harry interrupts him before he can start apologising again.

“It’s fine, Liam, really. He just doesn’t like me, I get it.”

Liam gives him a considering look out the corner of his eye. “I wouldn’t say Louis doesn’t like you, exactly.”

Harry stops in his tracks. He grins because he can’t help it, but it comes out a little bit patronising. “Liam, he literally spends 68% of his time swearing and taking the piss out of me.”

“That’s just the way he is though,” Liam sighs, and stops in front of Harry. “The thing with Louis is that it takes a while for him to warm up to people. And in the meantime he likes to play games. He likes to poke and prod and push at people before he decides he can trust them. It’s like they have to pass some weird test he’s made up in his head and only he knows the rules to. I don’t pretend I understand it, but what I do know is that when he finally lets his guard down around you he’s the sweetest and funniest and most caring guy you will ever meet.”

He says all this with such complete conviction, with such faultless faith in Louis, that Harry begins to think there’s maybe more to Louis than the bratty, spoiled popstar who’s been snarking at him all day.

“Just, don’t give up on him yet. Give him another chance, show him that he can trust you,” Liam implores.

“But I don’t understand! What have I done to make him think that he _can’t_ trust me?”

“Nothing, Harry, you haven’t done anything. It’s just the way Louis’ head works. And I know he’s the one in the wrong here, I’ve never seen him react quite this harshly to anyone else before, and you have every right to just blow him off. But he’s an amazing friend once you’ve won him over.”

Liam claps him on the shoulder once and then jogs into the stable after Niall and Zayn. Harry stays outside, scuffing the toe of his boot on the ground, making little patterns in the dirt and erasing them just to start all over again, as he mulls over everything Liam said.

And normally Harry is a very laidback person, he avoids drama at all costs, drama makes his hair go all limp and droopy. But there’s something about Louis. There’s something about the little glint in his eyes when he’s mocking Harry, something about the tiny trace of sincerity tucked away in the corners when he smirks all saccharine at Harry. There’s something about the hint of a challenge that was in Liam’s words, and something about the protective edge to his voice. There’s something about all of this that Harry doesn’t quite understand, but it makes him want to prove himself, even if he doesn’t know why.

He looks over to the car and catches Louis’ eyes darting away from him and that’s all he needs really.

He strides into the stables looking for Liam.

“And what exactly do you propose I do to ‘win him over’?”

Liam smiles at him, crinkly-eyed and cheeky and a tiny bit proud.

“You give just as good as you get.”

*******

“A little bit to the left. No, the _left_.”

“This _is_ my left.”

“No, that’s your right.”

“I’m _pretty sure_ it’s my left.”

“Well I’m _positively certain_ it’s your right.”

“ _This_ is my fucking left, Harold. _I am moving it to my left_.”

“Well you’re moving it to the _wrong fucking left_. Move it the other way, Little Twink.”

“So I should move it to my right?”

“No, you should still move it to your left. But the _other_ left. Because apparently you never made it to primary school.”

“One more word, Trustafarian. Say one more fucking word and _so help me God_ I will climb back down there and shove this tarpaulin so far up your arsehole that you’ll be able to _taste_ the fucking plastic.”

“ _Wow_. I didn’t realise you were so _kinky_ , Little Twink. We might have to change your nickname.”

_“That is it!”_

“Would the both of you just _shut the bloody fuck up!_ ”

Harry tears his eyes away from Louis and looks over his shoulder at Zayn. Zayn who has his hands fisted in what might have once resembled his trademark quiff, a manic glint in his eyes.

“Louis, stay the fuck up there and _try_ not to nail your fucking hand to the fucking wall. Haz, stay the fuck down here and keep your fucking frog mouth shut. If either of you two so much as fucking _sneeze_ I’ll throw you both into a pile of fucking horse shit.”

And with that Zayn stalks off to the other side of the stable, his Docs slapping an angry rhythm on the cement floor.

“Well he’s a bit sweary, isn’t he?”

“Horse shit, Louis! Horse shit!” Zayn shrieks.

It turns out Niall was right. It took only half an hour before Louis came slinking out of the car, grumbling about how “the radio wouldn’t work without any keys and I’d rather pluck out my own eyelashes than listen to the shitty hipster drivel on Harold’s iPod.”

It was kind of perfect timing actually. Liam and Niall had set themselves up on one side of the barn, securing black tarpaulins to block out the light coming in through the high windows, and Zayn and Harry were supposed to be doing the same on the other side of the barn. Except they’d hit a bit of a speed bump when they’d realised that Zayn was terrified of heights and Harry shouldn’t be trusted with power tools. Which is when Louis shuffled in and they sent him straight up the ladder, although not without some very loud and very colourful protestations.

So now Harry finds himself at the bottom of the ladder, holding it steady as Louis works above him, and immensely enjoying the view.

“Stop gawking at my arse, Harold.”

“I have simply no idea what you’re talking about, Little Twink.”

“Oh save it. I can _feel_ my butt cheeks burning with it.”

“That sounds pretty serious actually. You might want to get that checked out.”

A muffled kind of farting sound erupts from above.

Harry gasps. “Did I just make you _laugh_?”

“No. I get hay fever.”

“I’m sure.”

“Why am I even doing this?”

“Because I’m a comic genius.”

Louis sends a withering look over his shoulder and Harry’s about a second too slow in snapping his eyes up to Louis’ face. A smug smirk stretches over Louis’ mouth.

“I mean why am I currently up a ladder and nailing a tarpaulin across a window?”

Harry clears his throat and fluffs out his hair. He doesn’t know why but his face feels a bit hot. “Isn’t it obvious? If anyone were to see this place lit up like a Christmas tree tonight then they might call the cops on us.”

Louis drops the nail gun and it clatters to the ground, sending a rogue nail streaking off into the far corner. Harry is so incredibly grateful he still has all of his toes that he genuinely feels kind of weak with it.

“Are you _fucking kidding_ me? We’re breaking and entering and fucking shit up right now? If you get me fucking arrested Harry Styles I’ll – ”

“Calm your farm, Little Twink.”

He grins to himself, waiting for Louis to get it.

“That was actually awful.”

Why does no one understand how hilariously punny Harry is?

He sighs. “We’re not breaking and entering. Zayn’s dad owns this place.”

“What?” Louis’ sharp little features look even littler when they’re all scrunched up in confusion.

“A cleaning crew is coming in the morning. This place will probably look ten times better _after_ we’ve ‘fucked shit up’. We’re really doing him a favour if you think about it.”

“If this is Zayn’s family’s property then what was with all that double-oh-bullshit on the way here?”

“Just because we won’t get arrested doesn’t mean we won’t get in trouble. Trust me, an angry Yaser Malik is far scarier than any prison in England.”

Louis just keeps staring at Harry incredulously.

“I will never understand you rich people,” he says, shaking his head slowly.

“ _Us_ rich people? Don’t you own a football team?” Zayn asks, popping up behind Harry with Liam and Niall in tow.

Louis splutters for a while. “Yes, technically, I might. But it’s not like they’re in the fucking Premier League, is it?"

Harry considers Zayn with narrowed eyes. “How did _you_ know that?”

Zayn blushes for the second time in his life and Harry is becoming highly suspicious now.

“So Josh just texted me. He’s on his way with lunch.”

“Food! Fuck _yes_!” And Niall’s off, bounding out the exit with Liam trailing after him at a calmer pace.

Harry doesn’t realise Louis has moved until he’s standing only one rung above him and Harry is confronted with _eyes_ and _skin_ and _lips_ so close. When did Louis acquire such pretty looking lips? Harry gulps.

Louis tucks his chin down and looks at Harry through his _really freaking long_ eyelashes, his soft fringe tickling at Harry’s forehead.

“You going to make a move then, Styles?” Warm breath washes over Harry’s lips and he smells mint and tea and something indefinable.

“What?” Harry squeaks.

“Are you planning on getting the fuck out of my way?”

“Oh, um, yeah. I mean, yes. Sorry.”

“Thanks ever so,” Louis drawls, shooting a sharp, sarcastic grin at Harry as he hops down the final step of the ladder. Then he struts outside without a backwards glance.

Harry flounders for a moment, trying to remember where the hell he even is right now, until a low whistle cuts through his stupor. He looks over to his left and oh, Zayn’s here. And Zayn’s looking at him with elevated brows and squinty eyes and a curled smirk.

“What happened to your face, Malik?”

“Do you want to talk about it babe?”

“Talk about what?” Harry asks dangerously.

“About the suffocating sexual tension that’s stinking up this whole barn.”

“That’d be the horse shit, Zayn. And you told me this was a stable!”

“Oh what-the-fuck-ever. The point here is; you want Louis.”

Harry scoffs. “I do not.”

“ _Harry_ ,” Zayn plants his hands on Harry’s shoulders and looks him in the eyes like he’s talking to a particularly petulant 12 year old. “You call him _Little Twink_.”

Harry throws up his own hands in exasperation, nearly slapping Zayn in the jaw. “Well have you _seen_ him? That’s what he is!”

“Yeah I’ve seen him. Which is how I know he’s exactly your type.”

“ _What_? No he’s not. What are you talking about? I don’t have a type.”

“Yeah, Haz, you do. You love the little ones.”

“What – no – I don’t – Okay, fine, maybe I do. But he’s so _aggressive_ all the time. I hate that.”

Zayn actually starts cackling. “Are you _kidding me_? You love it when guys are aggressive. Or have you forgotten the time you made me tie you up and spank – ”

Harry shoves Zayn as hard as he can into a conveniently placed haystack.

“Well do _you_ want to talk about how you’re a closet Directionater?”

That shuts Zayn right up.

“We’re called Direction _ers_.”

He seems to realise his mistake as soon as it’s left his mouth.

“Oh my god! Do you have a favourite?”

Zayn clamps his lips together and glares hard at the haystack like it's personally offended him.

“You do! You have a favourite! This is brilliant!” Harry crows. “Who? Who is it?”

Zayn pushes himself back to his feet and makes a show of dusting off his leather jacket.

“Come on, Zaynie. You can tell me. I keep all of your secrets, remember? Who’s your favourite boybander?” Harry wheedles.

Zayn begins striding towards the door. Harry follows him doggedly.

“Is it sunshiny Niall? Oooh, I bet it’s rugged, dreamy Liam, isn’t it? Or is it – ”

Zayn whirls around with his own smug smile.

“Do go on, Harry. How would you describe Louis?”

“I was going to say spiteful and short-tempered, actually.”

“Really? You sure you weren’t about to say feisty and adorable?”

“No!” Harry stamps his foot and then pretends like he didn’t.

“What if my favourite was Louis? Would you be jealous?” Zayn singsongs, and starts poking Harry in the stomach.

“Absolutely not.”

Zayn just sighs at him. “Alright, mate, if you say so.”

“I do say so.”

“Come on birthday boy, let’s go get some food before Niall inhales it all.”

Zayn wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulders and Harry circles his around Zayn’s waist and together they walk out into the sun.

“Your secret is safe with me, Zaynie,” Harry mumbles into Zayn’s neck.

“And yours is safe with me, Hazza,” Zayn replies fondly, dropping a kiss onto Harry’s curls.

“But it’s totally Niall, isn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google sleeping otters. Do it. Do it now.


	5. Louis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sleep deprived brain came up with this nonsense. I apologise in advance.

When Zayn first appeared and started kissing random Harry-related body parts, Louis was curious. When the two of them walked out of the barn clinging to each other, Harry wrapped around Zayn like a working girl around the pole, Louis was suspicious. But now, when Zayn wrinkles his annoyingly symmetrical nose and fondly mutters “hipster” after Harry asks for his Turkey and Cranberry Sandwich on Rye Bread with Brie not Camembert, Louis feels something hot and acidic bubbling its way up his oesophagus.

He diagnoses himself with acute heartburn and stuffs his own ham and cheese sandwich down his throat to smother it.

Liam notices his somewhat violent chewing and scrunches up his face in a silent question. His features actually kind of look like a question mark if Louis squints his eyes hard enough.

Louis opens his mouth to show Liam his half-masticated lunch and Liam abruptly stops looking at him. He turns back to the conversation he was having with Niall and Harry’s friend, Josh, something to do with synthesizers which Louis couldn’t care less about, and leaves Louis free to go back to glaring at Harry and Zayn.

Harry now has both his arms wrapped around one of Zayn’s biceps, hugging it to his chest, giving the other boy massive cow eyes with his chin propped on Zayn’s shoulder. His half-eaten, fancy-cheese sandwich is lying forgotten on the hood of Josh’s car.

“Tell me,” Harry whines.

“Nope,” Zayn replies, completely unconcerned.

“Tell me.”

“Nope.”

“Tell me!” Harry demands, changing tactics and head-butting Zayn in the shoulder, floppy curls bouncing with the impact.

Adorable is not a word that appears in Louis’ vocabulary. And even if it did, it would not be a word Louis would use to describe Harry _fucking_ Styles in this moment.

Zayn raises one stupidly perfect eyebrow at Louis, which is when he notices his cheeks have been doing some sort of weird twitchy thing. He scowls at Zayn, just to give his face something else to do.

Then suddenly Harry pulls his head up from Zayn’s shoulder and looks over to where the conversation is now focused on beat-boxing.

“Hey _Niall_ …” Zayn shoots a deadly look at Harry, who only winks and continues on. “Who’s your favourite pop band member?”

Louis’ a little bit thrown by the completely random question, but Niall’s entire existence is just random questions followed by random actions followed by random snack options, so he merely purses his lips and furrows his eyebrows, contemplating his answer like one million rupees and the girl of his dreams depend on it.

“That depends. Does the band still have to be together?” he asks, entirely serious.

“Any band at all. Current, past, living, dead, anything as long as it’s a pop group,” Harry replies gleefully, and a muscle in Zayn’s jaw twitches.

“Well then I have to say Cheryl Cole. I actually nearly pissed meself when I saw her for the first time at me X Factor audition. Everyone thinks I was just nervous about performing but, really, I was too busy trying not to pop a stiffy to even worry about what was coming out me mouth.”

“That was, ah, that was _a lot_ of information there, Niall. But hmmm… interesting,” Harry muses, going so far as to stroke his non-existent beard. Come to think of it, is the boy even capable of growing facial hair yet? Louis makes a mental note to tease – erm, ask him about it.

“Wait, Cheryl Cole? You choose _Cheryl Cole_ over Posh Spice? She’s fit as all hell and managed to bag Becks!” Josh exclaims.

Louis has to agree with Josh on this one. David Beckham trumps everything. David Beckham trumps _life_. Louis will be forever, always, _eternally_ grateful to H &M for helping him to realise some _things_ about himself.

“Liam?” Harry prompts next.

“Um, I think I’m going to have to go with Gary Barlow on this one, Harry.” Of course _Liam_ answers the question as if he’s in an actual interview and not eating dry sandwiches out of a car boot in front a termite infested barn located halfway to Timbuktu.

Harry turns his attention back to Zayn. “What about you, _Zayn_? Who is your _favourite_ boyba – err, _pop_ band member?”

“Perrie Edwards,” Zayn answers with a nonchalant shrug. Harry frowns at him until Zayn looks at Louis and starts smirking.

“And who’s yours then, young _Harold_?”

Louis clenches his fist so hard that he ends up with bits of bread crust lodged underneath his fingernails.

“Justin Timberlake, no contest,” Harry proclaims instantly. “He definitely brings sexy back. Or does he just _have_ a sexy back? I never really got those lyrics.”

Louis rolls his eyes and scoffs because _Justin Timberlake_? Really? _Why_? How is there ‘no contest’ with a dude who spent half his career trying to pass off uncooked Ramen noodles as hair? This is the guy that wore an all-denim suit, complete with a denim cowboy hat. _A fucking denim cowboy hat._

If that’s what Harry considers attractive then he needs guidance from _all_ the gay saints. Are there any gay saints? Louis’ not Catholic but he has a feeling there aren’t. Harry needs help, basically, is what Louis’ getting at here. Maybe Louis should guide him. Maybe Louis can become the first gay saint. Louis shall henceforth be known as The Patron Saint of Gayness. The Patron Saint of Bisexuality? The Patron Saint of Flamboyance, now that’s catchy. Wait, does one have to be dead to become a saint?

“Louis!” Louis blinks back to reality to find Liam snapping his fingers in front of his face, Niall laughing so heartily he needs Josh to keep him upright and absolutely everyone staring at him.

“Jesus Lou, where did you go?”

“Rome.”

“What?”

“Nothing, nevermind. What was the question?”

“Who is your favourite pop band member, Little Twink?” Harry pipes up.

Normally Louis wouldn’t hesitate to snap some biting retort back at Harry, except that this situation isn’t normal because ten seconds ago he was quietly pondering Catholicism and now he’s suddenly got everyone’s undivided attention and massive Dobby eyes focused right onto his own and he’s feeling slightly overwhelmed. Which is very strange indeed because usually Louis’ not happy unless he's the centre of everyone’s universe.

So Louis just blurts the first name that comes to mind and hopes it’s enough to get Harry to stop _staring_ at him like that because it’s starting to get a little bit house-elf freaky and _does the boy never blink_?

“Liam, obviously!”

Harry blinks. Harry blinks multiple times in quick succession and then looks back and forth between Louis and Liam.

Liam beams at him and then grabs him around the neck and pulls him into a headlock, ruffling his hair and completely destroying his quiff.

“Aw, thanks Boo. You’re way better than Gary Barlow.”

Louis huffs out a laugh and the tension goes with it. He feels like he’s back on solid ground again.

But then he looks up. And Harry is frowning at his feet, and Zayn is frowning at Louis, and for some unknown reason he feels like he’s lost his footing once more and he doesn’t know quite where he stands.

“We should get back to work,” Harry declares, and then he turns and disappears back into the barn.

Zayn frowns one more time and then follows after Harry.

Josh starts to clean away their mess from lunch but Liam takes the wrappers out of his hands with a warm smile.

“We can take care of the clean up for you. We’ll meet you back in there, yeah?”

“Thanks man!” Josh says, clapping a hand on Liam’s shoulder before trotting off to join the other two.

“Why must you always volunteer us for clean up duty, Liam?” Louis groans, picking up Harry’s long forgotten sandwich between his thumb and index finger. He moves it 12 inches to the right and then promptly drops it again. He’s not _cleaning_ , he’s just clearing a space for his arse.

“Please,” Liam snorts. “It’s not like you ever help anyway. You don’t have to do anything except explain what’s going on with you and Harry.”

“Huh?” Louis’ confused. He wasn’t aware anything was going on with the gangly giant.

Niall pins him to the hood of the car with a stern look. “Don’t play dumb with us, Lou.”

“All jokes aside, I _seriously_ don’t know what you boys are on about.”

Liam gazes at him for a very long time, skepticism practically dripping from his overtly expressive eyebrows, and then he sighs and rubs a hand down his face.

“He actually doesn’t realise it.”

Niall also sighs and rolls his eyes and no, that is not okay. _Louis_ sighs dramatically and rolls his eyes. That’s _his_ move. Niall can’t use his _move_.

“Realise _what_?” Louis says hotly, crossing his arms over his chest because he doesn’t like not knowing things. It makes him feel vulnerable and Louis _hates_ feeling vulnerable.

“You like Harry.”

Relief crashes over him like a wave, because his friends might have just gone completely insane, but for a minute there he thought they were going to tell him something actually disturbing.

“Oh my god you guys!” Louis cackles. “I thought you were going to say something serious!”

“We are being serious, Lou,” Niall replies.

And that’s when Louis realises that something is very wrong here. Because Niall’s not laughing. Niall’s _never_ not laughing.

“ _What? What the fuck_ makes you think I _like_ the unwashed hippie?”

“I’m pretty sure he had a shower this morning, Lou.”

“Irrelevant!”

“You make it so obvious, Lou!” Liam breaks in. “You got so jealous just then.”

“Excuse me, Liam,” Louis says, holding up an imperious hand because no. Louis _doesn’t do_ jealousy. “I don’t get fucking jealous, okay, people get jealous of me.”

“Oh really? Then why did I see your eyes turn green when Zayn called Harry a hipster?” Liam smirks.

“That wasn’t jealousy! That was indignation! I was outraged on Harry’s behalf at the hypocrisy of Zayn calling Harry a hipster when he’s the one wearing fucking Ray Ban Clubmasters and a t-shirt that says _Cool Kids Don’t Dance_!”

Niall topples to the ground crying with laughter and some semblance of normalcy returns to the conversation.

“I can’t believe _you_ just called _someone else_ a hypocrite!” he wheezes. “Do you hear the words that come out of your mouth?”

Louis glowers at Niall.

“Okay then why did you start strangling your ham sandwich when Zayn called him _Harold_? I’m pretty sure the pig was already dead, Lou,” Liam says smugly, like he’s got it all figured out.

Yeah, well, he doesn’t.

“That was an issue of copyright infringement! I came up with that name and did not give him expressed permission to use it.”

Niall snorts from where he’s currently sprawled in the dirt. “You invented the name Harold, did you Lou?”

“What? No. Some old fart did. Probably Shakespeare or some shit. Whatever. The point is, I used that name in reference to Harry Styles first.”

“Louis. The kid is 18 years old. I’m entirely certain that some bright spark had plenty of time and enough imagination to call him Harold before you came along. It’s not exactly ground-breaking.”

Louis aims a kick at Niall’s stupid, grinning, stupid-face. Niall is stupid.

“I do not like Harry _fucking_ Styles and I think you both need a mental asylum."

Liam just sighs at him again.

“Whatever you say, Lou.”

"I say you need rehab."

*******

Louis stomps back into the barn ahead of Niall and Liam, quietly cursing the both of them and the hardcore drugs they are most certainly using. Where did tweedledum and tweedledumber even get drugs? He honestly imaged that, of the three of them, he’d definitely be the first to become a cokehead. Niall is too fucking happy to need narcotics, Liam says his body is his church or whatever the fuck, and _Louis_ is the bands’ token bad boy. It is his _predetermined destiny_ as the token bad boy to champion sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Except One Direction is a pop band, the only action he’s had recently has come from his right hand and now it seems he can’t even do the drugs part properly.

Louis is a shit token bad boy. All he can manage is to throw a damn good diva tantrum. With a jolt of pure horror Louis realises that he aimed for Rihanna but landed at Mariah Carey.

Inside he finds Harry, Zayn and Josh crowded around something on the floor. When he gets close enough he can see it’s one of the two large boxes that they picked up from the hardware store and it appears to be full of glass. Zayn glances up at him and then does a double take when he sees Louis’ face. “Whoa, what’s got your knickers in a twist?”

“I do not wear knickers,” Louis sniffs and crosses his arms over his chest, channeling as much Rihanna into his posture as he can. Louis is bold, Louis is beautiful, and Louis is _badass goddammit._

That whole illusion is comprehensively shattered when Liam comes up behind him, slinks an arm over his shoulders and winks. “So why did I find you in Victoria’s Secret last week?”

Someone makes a strangled sort of gasping sound but Louis can’t tell if it came from Harry or Zayn or himself. In any case, he swings his arm back swiftly and the heel of his palm collides satisfyingly with Liam’s crotch.

Liam squeaks and drops to the floor, curling himself into the foetal position with his hands between his thighs.

“You know, I’m really starting to miss the old, goody two-shoes Liam. What ever happened to him?”

“Louis Tomlinson ruined his shoes,” Liam wheezes from the concrete.

*******

Ten minutes later Louis finds himself once again up a ladder, this time changing out long cylindrical light bulbs and fervently praying to the Pope that he doesn’t electrocute himself.

“Dear Pope, if you let me live through this day I promise to do some basic research on your religion.”

“You alright up there, Little Twink?”

“I am splendid, Harold.”

“You do know that Catholics don’t actually pray to the Pope, right?”

Louis lets go of a light bulb and Harry shrieks like a little girl.

Louis is then hastily pulled down from the ladder and demoted to clean up duty. He grumbles under his breath about how it’s “ _obviously too fucking mainstream to throw a party in a building with functioning lights_ ” while he sweeps up a million tiny glass fragments.

At this point Niall ambles over to him, perfectly content and munching on a rainbow sprinkled doughnut.

“Where the hell did you get a doughnut from? Are you magic, Niall? Can you just conjure food out of thin air?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lou,” Niall scoffs. And _yes, Niall_ is currently standing in a barn wearing a doughnut like a ring on his finger with pink icing smeared inexplicably in his eyebrow, but _Louis_ is the ridiculous one in this situation and this whole day just makes perfect fucking sense to everyone.

Louis can do nothing but stare. He is physically paralysed with exasperation.

“So you must really like Harry then huh?” Niall says, and then goes cross-eyed trying to lick purple sprinkles off the tip of his nose.

Louis looks across the barn. At the moment Harry is trying to untangle himself from a roll of electrical tape that somehow ended up wound around his legs. He doesn’t stand a chance. He’s like a baby Gazelle caught in a poacher’s trap.

“I really really don’t,” Louis sighs.

“Oh but you really really do. I know these things.”

Louis decides it will be easier for everyone involved if he just humours the crazy person until a nurse comes to take him back to the ward.

“Is that so? And how exactly do you know these things, oh Enlightened One? Please, teach me your wizened ways.”

“Well you did just try to murder him with a light bulb. And you tend to get all homicidal when you have a proper crush on someone,” Niall explains, all matter-of-fact like he’s not a raving lunatic.

Louis splutters so violently that he fumbles a shard of glass and it slices into his palm.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ!”

“Are you okay, Little Twink?”

“Fuck off Styles.”

“Yep, he’s fine.”

Louis goes back to gaping at his bandmate. “Niall, what the – how is – that doesn’t – just – _what the fuck?_ ”

“Your serial killer tendencies are how you express love.” Niall pats him on the head with a sugarcoated hand.

Louis squeezes his eyes closed and counts backwards from ten. Then he counts backwards from twenty because the first ten didn’t work.

When he opens his eyes again Niall is licking his fingers and watching Louis with avid amusement.

“Listen, Leprechaun, if you don’t stop rabbiting on about my non-existent crush on Harry _fucking_ Styles I will take this glass dagger, shove it down your throat and use it to cut out your vocal chords.”

“Aw Lou! I love you too,” Niall cries. Then he wraps Louis up in a bear hug, ruffles his hair and skips off go annoy someone else with his inane ramblings.

Louis looks back over to Harry and finds him rolling around on the floor with Zayn, both of them trying to wrestle him out of the tape. Zayn straddles Harry’s hips backwards, attempting to pry Harry’s legs apart, while Harry giggles breathlessly and plays Zayn’s butt like a pair of bongo drums.

A sharp pain in his hand alerts Louis to the fact that he’s been clenching the broken glass in his fist.


	6. Louis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU READ THIS CHAPTER, I have a couple things to say.
> 
> a) I've added just over a thousand words to the end of chapter 5. I wrote it and then realised it was too short and filler-y to be its own chapter but it didn't really fit in with this chapter. So if you haven't seen that yet, go read it before you read this.
> 
> 2) I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK ME THIS LONG TO UPDATE. Yell at me in the comments if you so desire. I honestly have no excuses except for I had no idea what I wanted to write. I'm sorry! I hope this chapter kind of semi makes up for it. There's not much action (okay, there's no action) but it's important for character development and setting up the plot for later chapters. Which there will be. Hopefully relatively quickly.
> 
> d) I know that in following with the rhythm I originally set up, this chapter was supposed to be from Harry's perspective. But the great thing about writing is that I can completely disregard my own rules! So just enjoy another dose of Louis.
> 
> And finally, I hope you like it :) xxx

The sun has begun setting over the fields by the time the boys are finished preparing the barn. They’ve covered the windows, swept the floors, and replaced every single damn light bulb in the entire building. They’ve constructed a makeshift DJ booth, hung a disco ball, and set up a small stage for what will no doubt be a horribly hipster interpretation of ‘music’. Louis is preparing his eardrums for the worst. A barbershop quartet, banjoes, some dude wearing a poncho and playing the spoons, who the fuck even knows when it comes to Harry Styles?

Louis is positively certain that he’s never been this sore in his entire twenty-one years of existence. He’s spent the whole day swearing, sweating, groaning and taking orders from a lanky kid in irrationally tight trousers. And actually, that sounds like an ideal Saturday night in Louis’ opinion. But today involved 100% heavy lifting and 0% nudity, so no, Louis is tired and grumpy and decidedly lacking in post-orgasm-haze.

He’s currently sat on the hood of Harry’s Range Rover, leaning against the windshield with his eyes closed, and trying his damned hardest to visualise his happy place. Louis is on a beach. He’s on a beach that is two hundred miles away from any form of farming infrastructure. He feels the soft sand against his shoulder blades and the small of his back, a welcome pressure on his aching muscles. He feels the sun warming his skin, bronzing his cheekbones and chest and the tops of his thighs. He can taste the wind as it pushes waves into shore, cool and fresh and salty, reviving him. He watches over the top of his sunglasses as a pretty boy swims through the breakers, the water propelling him like some kind of Greek god on a whitecap chariot. But hang on, something’s wrong. That boy shouldn’t be wearing black jeans in the surf. That boy shouldn’t be here at all.

Louis tilts his head to the right. “You’re violating my happy place with your filthy hipsterism.”

“My sincerest apologies.”

Louis fights to stay on his beach, willing himself into imaginary drunkenness with mojitos served in sand pails.

“So where are we? In this happy place of yours?”

He sighs. It was fun while it lasted. “Anywhere but here.”

“Right.”

Louis cracks one eye open and sees Harry mirroring his position leant up against the windshield. Except he’s got his head tipped backwards and his eyes open, gazing up at the sky.

Harry looks older in profile. His brow seems somehow heavier, slightly furrowed in the centre. His jaw becomes even more prominent and his nose is sharper from this angle. His cheeks don’t look as full and his pouty lips appear thinner, turned down at the corner, dimple hidden.

His eyes don’t seem as wide anymore.

Looking at him like this, Louis starts wondering how much Harry has seen.

“So why a barn, Harold? Why spend the majority of your eighteenth birthday doing manual labour when you could’ve rented out a club and arrived in a limo and actually partied in style?”

Harry shrugs, keeps his eyes on the sky. “Who needs style, really?”

Louis snorts. “So young. So much to learn.”

“Oh yeah?” Harry finally turns to look Louis in the eyes. “How would you spend your birthday then?”

“Me?” Louis thinks back to his twenty-first birthday and he can’t help the genuine smile that pushes his cheeks ever higher. “Well luckily I’m always home for it, what with it being Christmas Eve and all. My birthdays usually begin at about four o’clock in the morning. The twins tend to get a little over-excited and they’ve not yet grasped the concept of beauty sleep.”

Harry scrunches his face up at that and for reasons unknown to man Louis thinks of toddlers in a sandpit. He’s definitely over-exerted himself.

“Twins?”

“My sisters, Daisy and Phoebe,” Louis explains.

“I didn’t know you had twin sisters,” Harry muses.

“Why would you? And anyway, that’s only the half of it. Add another two to the equation.”

“And you’re the only boy?” Harry looks vaguely terrified.

Louis nods proudly.

“ _Shit_.”

“They’re absolute angels, all of them,” Louis says, a defensive edge creeping unbidden into his tone. “And I’m their big brother.”

Harry cocks his head to the side, looking at Louis like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Anyway, by nine all four of the girls have somehow my ended up in my bed, one way or another. Mum always acts surprised when she walks in to find the five of us snoring on top of each other. Then there’s ice-cream cake for breakfast, because sugar is the most important food group, obviously. And after that I usually take the girls out so they can burn off their sugar rushes somewhere with more space and less valuables.”

Harry laughs and Louis is surprised to find that it’s rather a nice sound, when it’s not at his expense.

“We used to go bowling or to the cinema, but a couple years ago the twins spent the entire day before convincing me that they had, in fact, gained control of their limbs and their legs now took orders from their brains. So we’ve been going ice-skating ever since.”

“I went ice-skating once.”

Louis raises both eyebrows. “Once?”

“I’m not entirely sure how it happened. One minute I was just gliding along, the next minute I’d managed to slice open the inside of my thigh with my own blade.”

Louis is trying so, _so_ hard to hold it together.

“They had to shut the rink down so they could clean all the blood off the ice.”

Louis lets it go. It was either that or burst a lung.

“Mum gave me a lifetime ban after that.”

Louis has to grab onto Harry’s knee to keep himself from rolling off the bonnet with the force of his laughter. It’s gotten to the stage where he’s not even making sound anymore, just an odd sort of honking noise as he breathes in and air gets trapped in the back of his throat. He’s shaking and he’s weeping and all of his muscles have been liquefied.

“I’m glad my near death experience is so amusing to you,” Harry deadpans, watching Louis out the corner of his eye as a muscle jumps at the edge of his lips.

“Sorry,” Louis pants.

“No you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” Louis concedes, and then erupts into another fit of giggles. “It’s just _so easy_ to picture that happening.”

Harry finally gives in and sniggers at himself. He speaks up again once Louis is settled against the windshield once more.

“So what happens after ice-skating?”

“We stuff ourselves with junk food until we just can’t take it anymore and then we roll ourselves back home. Then we spend the rest of the afternoon sprawled on the living room floor, watching Christmas movies and moaning. Mum tries her best to yell at us for making ourselves sick, but she usually ends up offering us gingerbread cookies and laughing at the faces we make.”

“Your mum sounds pretty awesome,” Harry says wistfully.

“She’s the greatest. She’s my best friend.”

Louis is waiting for a comment, a dig at his flagging social life or a jab about being a mamma’s boy, but it never comes. When he looks over Harry is squinting intently at a tree. Odd child.

“Anyway, next I’m showered with gifts and then our appetites make a miraculous recovery in time for cheesy-beans-on-toast for dinner.”

“No turkey?” Harry seems to have lost interest in the local flora.

“No turkey, no gravy, no nothing. Mum always says that the twenty-fourth of December is my day and it has nothing to do with Christmas.”

“It sounds incredible.” Louis looks up and Harry is completely serious, completely earnest.

“I mean, it’s not much, but it’s tradition,” Louis shrugs, and then his eyes light up. “But the best bit is New Years Eve. Liam and Niall rent out a London club and throw me a massive late birthday party. People will do _anything_ to get an invitation. It’s the hottest party of the year. I get hundreds of presents and ring in the New Year extraordinarily hammered.”

“ _That’s_ the best part of your birthday?” Harry sounds incredulous and not as impressed as Louis was anticipating. “Getting wasted at a rager with people who only come to be seen there?”

Louis sits up quickly, offended by what Harry’s implying. “They come to see _me_ ,” he spits. “And aren’t _you_ doing the exact same thing in a much stupider location?”

Harry goes completely still, his mouth hanging open. Then he snaps it shut and leans back again, returning his eyes to the sky.

Louis waits for Harry to tell him he’s wrong, waits for Harry to say anything. But nothing happens. The two of them just sit there, silent, on the hood of a car parked in a field.

Eventually Louis gets bored of being ignored. “Well, what’s the best part of your birthday, then?”

Harry answers immediately. “Last year it was when my sister came back. We spent the whole day trying to make this orange and poppy-seed cake.” A tiny smile creeps up his lips. There’s a hint of nostalgia in his green eyes. “But Gems kept getting the ratios dreadfully wrong. Our first attempt turned out bright orange. The second had way too much carrot, and it was actually the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. The third contained more poppy-seeds than flour.”

“It kind of just sounds like a massive disaster,” Louis butts in, eloquent as always. “Er, sorry.”

“Oh, no, it was. It was dismal. Took us eight tries to get it right,” Harry chuckles softly, shaking his head. “But that eighth cake was the best damn cake I’ve had in my life.”

Louis grins. He doesn’t really want to but he kind of can’t help it. Not when faced with this silly boy and his baking misadventures.

“And this year?” he prompts.

It takes Harry a lot longer to answer this time, and when he does he doesn’t say anything at all. He just lifts a hand and points upwards.

Louis looks up at the heavens. He needs to remind himself to breathe.

The sun is hanging so low. It’s just a red ball on the horizon, about to drop out completely. The sky is clear and streaked with brilliant pinks and vibrant oranges, fading into mauve and then a dusky violet. The surrounding trees are nothing but black silhouettes on a grand canvas.

Louis wants to write a song. If he had any artistic ability he’d paint a picture, he’d snap a photo, he’d cast this in glass and hang it in a window. He wishes he were good with words. He just wants something to take with him. Anything. Just some form of evidence so he knows that this was once real. He wants some way of capturing this sense of awe, this feeling of being so small, so that he can keep it with him and bring it back out on rainy days.

Louis turns back to Harry to say something, Lord knows what, but Harry is already gone. He’s walking away, head down, hands in his pockets, puffs of dirt kicking up around his ankles. And that’s the moment Louis realises.

The best part of someone’s eighteenth birthday shouldn’t be the sky.


	7. Harry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on The Authors Notes... "...later chapters. Which there will be. Hopefully relatively quickly." Ahahahaha YEAH RIGHT IDIOT.
> 
> So I know it's been more than two weeks since I've updated this and I apologise profusely. Please feel free to kick my butt in the comments. I am a horrible person. I also stole candy from a homeless baby at Christmastime. Speaking of, I'm going to run with Christmas as an excuse for this tardiness. You had your birthing at such an inconvenient time, Baby Jesus. Please be more considerate with the Second Coming. 
> 
> As a peace offering, this chapter is riddled with sexual tension. Also wizarding references. I had a lot of fun with this. I was very drunk. I am still kind of drunk. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
> 
> Did I describe Harry Styles' legs as 'unerringly fuckable'? Hells yeah I did. Let us all take a moment to pray that One Direction NEVER EVER read fanfiction. 
> 
> Um, I am no longer entirely sure of what I am saying or why I am saying it. But thank you so much for putting up with my random shit. Enjoy, kiddies! :) xxx

Harry is not going to lie. All three members of One Direction are extremely visually appealing.

However, not even they can manage to look fantastic after an entire afternoon of manual labour. Not to mention the fact that they all stink to high heavens. Naturally, Louis demands a hot shower and plants himself in the front seat of the Range Rover until everyone else is ready to leave.

He spends the entire ride back to London shooting Harry these little looks that he thinks are subtle, and Harry is content to let him believe he’s being sneaky. Harry doesn’t particularly want to talk.

Back at his house, Harry sets the boys up in the guest bathroom and then packs the boot of his car with as much alcohol as it can safely carry. He double, triple, quadruple checks that everything’s been seen to, that everything is perfect, before stepping into his own en suit bathroom.

It’s in here, alone, with nothing but white walls and steam, that it’s hardest to keep his thoughts from wandering. Where the hot, damp air seeps into his mind, creeps into the cracks of all the little boxes he’s sealed up so tight, and tries to push them open from the inside.

Harry distracts himself by creating new hairstyles with the suds from his shampoo. He starts off with a Mohawk and rocks out with his cock out, playing air guitar until he nearly dislocates a hip slipping on the sleek tiles. Then he gives himself a quiff and hums the tune to Grease Lighting under his breath, adding in the hand movements and a little butt wiggle. Finally he slicks it all back off his forehead so his hair is lying completely flat along his skull, the ends curling up a bit at the base of his neck. It’s only when he catches himself sneering at his rubber duck and muttering about ‘filthy mudbloods’ that he decides it’s probably time to stop.

Next he washes his body, counting all his tattoos along the way, making sure they still look how they’re supposed to look. He loses track of how long he spends just staring at the tiny ‘A’ in the crook of his left elbow. A little box bursts open and he shuts off the water abruptly, stepping quickly out of the shower, soapy residue still clinging to his shoulder blades.

When he swings his bathroom door open he is quite startled to find one third of the worlds most popular boyband standing right next to his desk, leaning over to peer at the photos tacked onto the wall.

Louis whips around, his mouth already open and sucking in a breath, no doubt pre-prepared with some kind of stinging wisecrack. But when he sees Harry his words seem to dissolve somewhere between his lungs and his lips, and all that comes out is a kind of glugging noise.

Louis snaps himself out of it admirably quickly, although not quickly enough to stop his eyes from roaming downwards, widening significantly, and then ripping back up to settle somewhere over Harry’s right shoulder.

“Can I help you?” Harry asks drily.

“You’re – um, you’re very naked,” is what Louis replies, which isn’t really an answer and also probably the least sarcastic sentence that Louis has spoken all day.

“I’m well aware.”

Harry doesn’t say anything else and neither does Louis. They simply stand there, breathing in the awkward tension, waiting for the other to make the next move.

“And, um, you’re not going to cover any of, er, _that_ up?” Louis eventually breaks the silence, with an accompanying vague hand gesture in the direction of Harry’s crotch.

He still hasn’t looked at Harry; in fact he’s very intently focused on the wardrobe door, as if hoping that he might be able to levitate clothes out of it through sheer will and determination. Perhaps he’s trying to set the room on fire with pyrokinesis. Or maybe he’s trying to set himself on fire. Who really knows? He's quite a violent little thing.

A muscle has started twitching in his face, making the delicate skin under his right eye jump repeatedly.

Harry can feel a slow smirk spreading over his lips as he realises that, for the first time since meeting Louis, he just might have the upper hand. And he very much enjoys the upper hand; he wants to keep it as long as possible. So he shifts his weight on his feet, spreading them slightly wider, cocking a hip out so that _everything’s_ on display. He lifts his hands, pushing them both through his wet hair, and then crosses his arms loosely over his chest so that his biceps, pecs and abs bulge out, droplets falling from his curls and running in rivulets over flexed muscle. He wants to pat himself on the back for not towelling off before he stepped out. Finally, he tilts his head and looks at Louis with big eyes and parted lips, the postcard perfect picture of innocence.

“Is my dick making you uncomfortable, Little Twink?”

“No,” Louis scoffs, but the redness blooming over his high cheekbones says otherwise. “I have absolutely no problems with your dick.”

Harry snorts. “I’m sure you don’t.”

That makes Louis snap his gaze back to Harry, anger and something else fighting each other in his eyes.

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” he spits.

“It’s not supposed to mean anything other than what it actually means.”

Louis grinds his teeth together audibly. Harry grins.

“So did you have fun snooping around my room?”

“I wasn’t snooping,” Louis retorts, weak and just half a beat too quick. He clears his throat and runs his left hand along the top of Harry’s desk. He checks his fingertips for dust.

“Right,” Harry says, drawing it out slower than usual, even for him, and that single syllable continues on for almost 7 seconds. “What are you doing here then, if not to invade my privacy and ogle my body?”

“Can you just _please_ put some clothes on?” A desperate edge creeps into Louis’ voice, and Harry is far too naked to be able to handle Louis begging like that. He has absolutely nothing to hide behind if things begin to point north.

“Well well, Little Twink,” Harry tuts with an aloofness he is most certainly not feeling, but he’ll be damned if he lets his own dick take away this newfound superiority. “Before you let your sticky little fingers loose in here, you should’ve considered the fact that sometimes I like to stand around naked in my bedroom for no other reason than I can.”

“And _you_ should consider the fact that _sometimes_ I like to make _hair ribbons_ out of teenage boys _entrails_ and then use them to hold back said boy’s _fucking curls_ ,” Louis grits. “For no other reason than _I can_.”

And Harry’s not positive but he thinks he can see the vein in Louis’ forehead actually pulsing.

“Well. That’s very ‘homicidal manic’ of you,” Harry quips.

Harry should not have quipped.

“ _Put on some fucking underpants_!” Louis screeches and Harry goes scampering into his wardrobe as fast as his bare arse will carry him.

So much for the upper hand.

When Harry walks back out of the wardrobe he’s dressed respectably in dark wash blue skinnies and a white V-neck tee, his favourite army green bandana wrapped around his head. His trousers are intensely crotch restricting, but sometimes that’s the price he must pay to make his legs look unerringly fuckable.

This time Louis has migrated over to his bedside table and is now frowning down at a photo frame grasped tightly in his little hands.

Harry gives one single, pointed cough.

Louis twists around and hides his prize behind his back.

“Oh my God, you’ve achieved the impossible!” he gasps. “I honestly didn’t believe you could look more hipster than before, but here you stand.”

Harry doesn’t rise to the bait. “What’ve you got there, Little Twink?”

Louis fumbles to replace the frame without looking. “What? Nothing. I don’t have anything.” He snatches his hands back and waves his little fingers at Harry. “See, empty.”

Harry advances slowly towards him and Louis backs up until he bumps the table with his bum, fingers still twitching in a feeble attempt to ward Harry off. Harry walks right into his space until they’re toe to toe, forehead to nose. Until Harry can feel Louis’ shallow breaths puffing over the hollow of his throat.

He leans in, only stopping when his lips are just barely brushing over the tiny hairs on the skin of Louis’ ear.

His fingers close around cool metal and velvet. He bites down just once, a soft graze of teeth and the tiniest touch of tongue, quick as a whisper. He draws back.

Louis looks kind of like he’s been shot.

Harry feels awfully proud of himself, until he glances at the photo and then he just feels confused.

“Zayn?”

Louis only blinks at him in response.

Harry looks back down at the photo. It’s just a snapshot, a picture that wasn’t planned, a moment that wasn’t designed to exist forever. It’s blurry around the edges and completely off-centre and the lighting is shit. It was taken on a bloody camera phone.

And it’s the most precious thing Harry owns.

It’s a photo of him and Zayn dancing at Zayn’s 18th birthday party. Zayn has his arms folded behind his back and Harry is crowded up against him, his own long limbs fitted through under Zayn’s. They’re dancing as one entity, Zayn’s body and Harry’s arms. He’s got one hand splayed out low on Zayn’s stomach, fingers branching so wide he’s almost touching both of Zayn’s narrow hips. His other hand is pointing to the sky in the standard disco boogie pose. They look so fucking stupid. But more than that, they look stupidly happy.

Zayn’s got his head thrown back, mid-laugh, eyes squeezed shut with tears collected in his lashes. Harry is incandescent. He’s beaming, lips pulled so wide that every one of his teeth are on display, dimples so deep they’re nothing but vertical lines in his cheeks.

That night was the happiest Harry can ever remember feeling; together with the greatest friend he’s ever had, drunk and dancing and laughing. Even now, thinking back on it, he still gets bubbles in his tummy and tingles in his toes, his blood fizzing with undiluted joy.

If he ever needed to cast the Patronus charm this is the memory he’d use. And _yes_ , he has thought in depth about such things, because how could he not when his name is Harry and he’s got green eyes.

This photo is the greatest thing. Ever. Why would Louis frown at it?

“Louis?” Harry turns the frame around and shows it to Louis as if he wasn’t just glaring at it moments ago.

Louis no longer seems dazed and his eyes flash briefly to the picture before fixing on Harry’s nose.

“What’s the deal with you guys?”

“Deal?” Harry parrots, puzzled.

“Yeah. You and Zayn.” Louis shrugs nonchalantly. “Are you two, like, together?” Louis’ light yawn looks suspiciously forced and Harry tries desperately hard to contain his seal-honk. Did he actually just fake a yawn to appear unconcerned?

Harry smiles, long and slow and smug.

“Why? Are you _jealous_ , Little Twink?”

Louis looks like he’s begun to choke on his tonsils, but then he fixes Harry with a sharp gaze and his own smarmy grin unfurls.

“Yes, actually Harold, I am jealous.”

Why does Harry suddenly feel on the back foot all over again?

“I mean, how could I not be jealous?” Louis asks, biting at his smile. “Have you seen him?” He takes the photo out of Harry’s hands and looks back down at it. “He is literally the sexiest fucking person I have ever laid eyes on. And I’ve been to a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.”

Of course. _Of course_ Louis wants Zayn. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want Zayn? Harry himself has wanted Zayn. Harry has _had_ Zayn. Multiple times.

“Like, his _eyelashes_ and his _cheekbones_ and his _lips_.” Louis gushes. “He’s like diamond cut glass. He’s perfect, you know?”

Harry knows. Everyone knows. And apparently now Louis knows too.

“And his _hands_. Looking at his hands you can just tell he’d be an _incredible_ fuck. Like, he’d know exactly what to do with his hands to make me fucking scre–”

“Alright! Jesus fucking Christ, enough!” Harry all but shouts, snatching the photo out of Louis’ hands and taking three very large steps away from him.

“What’s the matter, Harold?” Louis licks his lips like there’s blood in the water, his shark-like grin reappearing as if it never left. “Can’t take the heat? Because, trust me, it’d be _so_ hot.”

“That’s my best fucking friend you’re talking about.” Harry swallows. “I don’t want to hear all your fantasies about how he’d make you scream.”

He sets the frame down gently on his desk and doesn’t look at Louis watching him.

“Why’re you here?”

“Uh, your mum paid for–”

“I know my mum paid you,” Harry snaps. “I meant here in my room,” he continues, relieved when his voice doesn’t relay the trembling of his fingertips.

“Oh. Right. Um, I was wondering if I could borrow a shirt? I got something on mine in the barn today. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I’m not keen on sniffing it to find out,” Louis says, chuckling at his own joke.

Harry nods and strides back into his wardrobe. Inside he takes a minute to just breathe, to concentrate on the push and pull as his lungs expand, to stop the hinges on his little boxes from creaking. He tenses all of his muscles and then relaxes them one by one, felling the dull ache in his chest recede like it’s flowing out through the tips of his toes. He grabs a white scoop neck t-shirt and walks back out to Louis.

“Here,” he says, handing it over, and his skin doesn’t feel too brittle when he smiles.

“Thank you. I guess I’ll show you mine since I’ve seen all of yours.” And with that Louis whips his top off before Harry even has the time to scrunch up his eyebrows and think _what_?

Contrary to Zayn Malik’s opinion, Harry does not _like_ Louis Tomlinson. However, if he did he’d definitely think _holy fucking shit_ when confronted with the smooth, tan planes of Louis’ torso. If he did, he’d groan internally at the sight of the dip in Louis’ waist and his tiny, curvy hips. If he did, he’d be so grateful that he’d decided to put some pants on.

When Louis tugs the top on Harry wants to lash out. Because Louis looks even tinier in a too big t-shirt, and Harry can see his curling collarbones and the few swirling strands of a chest piece, and _Louis_ is wearing _Harry’s_ clothes but he wants Zayn, not Harry.

Harry doesn’t like what he’s feeling and he doesn’t know where to go and so he lashes out in the only way he can think of.

“You’re right, you know.” Louis looks up at him, surprised, when Harry crowds back into his space. “Zayn _is_ an incredible fuck.” Harry leans in again to whisper hotly in Louis’ ear. “And his hands are _so fucking good_ at making me scream.”

Then he turns around and leaves Louis standing stock-still and shocked in his bedroom.


	8. Louis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard to write and took forever! Sorry!  
> Hope you like it anyway :) xxx  
> (there is grinding, you will like it)

Louis doesn’t know how to feel.

And this is the first time in his entire life that such a thing has ever occurred. Usually Louis has absolutely no trouble identifying his emotions. When he’s happy he feels it in his toes, and when he’s sad he feels it deep in his gut, and when he’s pissed he feels it throbbing behind his eyelids. When he’s pissed someone else usually feels it too. They feel it bruising their shoulders or their shins or their balls. They feel it wherever Louis can reach them, basically.

So Louis feels. Louis feels a lot, all the time, very deeply.

But right now Louis just doesn’t know how he feels.

The best he can figure is that he feels kind of like a fish. But not just any fish, a very specific fish. He feels like a fish he once saw at a market when One Direction were in Japan.

This fish had wide, panicked eyes as it flopped around on the cement floor, mouth gaping open and closed as it tried in vain to draw oxygen into it’s gills. It was just a mess of staring and flailing and gulping.

Yeah. Louis feels kind of like that.

Because on the one hand, Louis now knows that Harry and Zayn have definitely fucked. And so, without permission, his brain keeps conjuring up these _images_. Harry and Zayn are both ridiculously hot in their own respects, but put the two together and it’s like a fucking supernova inside a fucking volcano in the middle of the fucking Sahara Desert. They create this heat that Louis can already feel in his face and under his collar. He’s afraid to close his eyes because when he does all he can see is Harry. Harry with his broad shoulders, and his firm chest, and his _utterly fucking ridiculous_ I-just-got-out-of-maximum-security-but-also-a-toddler-drew-on-me tattoos. Harry with his hands in his hair and his pupils blown wide and his lips bitten raw. Harry screaming.

Harry screaming as Zayn touches him.

Which means that on the other hand Louis feels a bit like he’s simmering. When he pictures Harry and Zayn together he feels hot and bothered, sure, but he also feels his hands itching. His stomach starts churning while his blood starts fizzing and his jaw starts clenching. It’s like everything inside is just bubbling away, building up pressure, and soon his skin won’t be able to hold him back and he’ll burst. He’ll go flying in every direction and he’ll ruin everything within the splash zone. The last time Louis felt like this was when he was 15 and his best mate got a girlfriend. And suddenly Stan was spending all his time with the girlfriend and Louis came in second best. So one night at a party Louis got drunk and screamed at the girlfriend and threw himself at Stan. Louis burst. And it ruined everything.

But on the third hand (because Louis needs an extra fucking limb to handle all this shit) Louis doesn’t feel fit to burst _at all_. He resolutely ignores all the various churning, fizzing, bubbling and other onomatopoeias going on inside his body because Louis _does not_ like Harry _fucking_ Styles. He doesn’t. So he absolutely does not care that Harry has a boyfriend. Or a best friend with benefits. Or a Zayn. Or even a blow up doll for that matter. Wherever the fuck Harry puts his dick, it doesn’t affect Louis in the slightest. So he refuses to care about it.

However, what _does_ bother Louis is the fact that Harry is still so fucking unconcerned about everything. Louis took one look at Harry, _all_ of Harry, in all of his naked, wet glory, and felt the desperate desire to crawl under the bed, curl up in a ball and wallow in arousal and denial and secondhand embarrassment. But Harry, the nudist himself, just stood there, air drying, completely content with the sate of the world. He only got dressed because Louis was T-minus two seconds from a thermonuclear explosion.

So if this kid isn’t even troubled by his junk hanging out, flapping in the breeze, what the fuck _does_ it take to faze him?

On the way back to the barn again, Louis forgoes the front seat and hops in to the back next to Liam. He can actually sense the shift in the atmosphere as Liam’s humungous eyebrows raise to a position that Cher would be proud of. He ignores it. He also ignores it when Niall turns a full 180 degrees in his seat and stares at Louis for 5 minutes straight.

He needs a bit of time, a bit of space. He needs to regroup.

Louis’ original plan for today was to have no plan at all. And that was _thoroughly_ cocked up. So Louis’ plan B became figuring out what made Harry Unperturbed Styles finally crack.

Nowhere in Louis’ plans did he schedule in seeing Harry Unperturbed Styles full frontal, and then having enough of an emotional breakdown over it that he needed a surplus of imaginary limbs to cope with it.

Louis decides he needs to get his head back in the game, and he’s just finished preparing a mental list of all his finest insults when they pull up outside the barn.

It’s still relatively early in the evening and the party doesn’t start until late, so the only other cars parked outside belong to Josh and a hypocritical, stereotypical, annoyingly perfect-faced, bad-boy-slash-art-major wannabe with idiotic hair and supposedly magic hands.

Some people refer to him as Zayn.

Some people only use 10% of their brain capacity.

Louis spends so long trying to think of words synonymous with ‘stupid’ that he’s the last one to enter the barn. And when he does he feels his hackles rise and the little hairs on his arms stand on end.

Everyone is staring at him. But no one is staring at him quite like Harry is.

Because Harry looks positively predatory.

Harry takes one very slow, very deliberate step forward and Louis flashes back to a bedroom with blue walls and cream carpet and a dark wood bed frame. His chest is heavy with the imaginary weight of a teenage boy, all the breath being forced from his body, heart picking up into a jolted rhythm. And _no_. This is not an appropriate time to remember the way that Harry’s tongue felt like scorched satin as it flicked out against the shell of Louis’ ear.

Harry keeps prowling towards him, smirking now, like he can tell exactly what is running through Louis’ mind, and that is something Louis _will not stand for_. He refuses to be reduced to a blithering mess when faced with an overgrown _child_.

So Louis plants his feet and crosses his arms, raising his chin defiantly and clearly conveying a message of _yeah, come at me now._

Harry stops abruptly, eyebrows pulled up in surprise, and Louis is triumphant.

_Yeah, who’s the big man now, huh? Not you. Not ickle wickle Har-_

Something very wet, very cold, and very _pink_ splatters Louis all the way from the tops of his thighs to the underside of his jaw.

Louis squeals like a newborn pig.

Before he even has the time to finish screeching something equally as wet and equally as cold, but this time a candy floss purple, is squirted straight into his face, effectively cutting him off mid-shriek.

Once again Louis feels like the equivalent of a sushi ‘before’ shot.

When he’s finished coughing and spluttering and swiping purple gunk from his eyelashes, he looks down to find Harry convulsing on the floor, a bottle of paint clutched in each hand. He’s laughing so hard that it actually looks painful, knees jerking and chest heaving. He sounds like he’s in pain too, as choked-off sobs are wrenched from deep within his lungs. Well _good_.

“What the _motherfucking fuck_!?”

“Face – did you – Louis – _face_!” is the only reply Harry can gasp out before he succumbs, shaking, once again.

Louis looks over at the others for help only to find them in a similar state. They’re all clutching at each other hysterically, trying to keep themselves upright, before Josh’s knees buckle and they all go tumbling to the ground.

All Louis can do is stand there, dripping, looking like a drunk fairy princess threw up all over him.

Louis’ shock slowly morphs into anger when he realises that this doe-eyed, venti-sized, barely legal rich kid just destroyed his favourite pair of jeans. And not in the good way.

Zayn is the first person to gather enough wits about him to speak in coherent sentences, although he still lets out these little snorts every once in a while.

“Why the fuck didn’t we film that? His face – ha! – his face was _priceless_! Oh god. _Oh god_ that was amazing.”

“One of you had better explain _why the fuck_ I look like a My Little Pony just ejaculated or I swear to the Pope that I will burn this pigsty to the ground with every single one of you inside it,” Louis seethes.

“It’s a paint party, Lou,” Liam chuckles.

“ _Really_? I had no fucking clue! Nothing whatsoever tipped me off to the fact that paint might be somehow involved! What a revelation!”

Liam just sighs exasperatedly. “I understand it is a difficult concept for you Louis, but if you could sideline the sarcasm for just one minute I might be able to continue my explanation.” He punctuates his little speech with the perfect arch of an eyebrow. Louis taught him well. Louis feels almost proud of how far Liam has come.

But then he feels paint ooze into his belly button and pride goes flying out the window.

Louis growls to convey his displeasure but otherwise stays silent.

“It’s a paint party. Everyone was told to wear white and then when they walk in they’ll be sprayed with a special paint that turns fluorescent underneath the UV lights we installed today,” Liam explains patiently, like these facts are glaringly obvious to everyone in the universe except Louis.

“And why did no one think to point this tiny detail out beforehand?” Louis demands.

“They did, Lou. Harry explained everything, you were just too busy being a prima donna and refusing to get out of the car to hear it,” Niall grins. “So relax, everyone else will be covered in unicorn jizz soon enough.”

“Relax! You want me to _relax_ while I’m getting lead poisoning?”

“ ‘S alright, mate,” Zayn pipes up. “We’re pretty sure it’s non-toxic.”

Louis rounds on him. “Pretty sure? You morons are _pretty sure_ it’s non-toxic. Which really means that for all you pinheads know I could wake up tomorrow morning completely bald with my testicles turned inside out!”

“And wouldn’t that be a sight to see,” Harry giggles.

“ _You_ ,” Louis fumes, turning to point menacingly at Harry, “ _you_ do not have permission to speak. I’m still working on a punishment for _you_.”

Harry looks up from where he’s lying sprawled at Louis’ feet; where he’s lying red faced, breathless, with tears in his eyes. Harry looks perfect like this.

“You gonna punish me, Little Twink?” Harry asks, voice low and raspy from his laughing fit. “Was I bad?” he whispers.

Louis is done with everything.

He swoops down, snatches a bottle from Harry’s hand and squeezes pink paint all over his crotch and torso.

He doesn’t stop until the entire bottle has been milked dry.

Louis just squirted all over Harry Styles.

*******

Two hours later, Louis is pleasantly buzzed and begrudgingly admitting that maybe this party doesn’t suck half as much as he was expecting it to. There are people everywhere, drinking and laughing and moving together, the whole place enveloped in a surreal glow as UV lights catch on paint-splattered bodies.

It’s hard not to get caught in the aura, the combined effect of heat and colour and swirling lights. Louis blinks and suddenly he’s in the thick of it, arms above his head as he drops his hips to the beat, faceless people reaching out to grab him and leaving technicolor handprints in their wake.

Louis catches himself actually enjoying the hideously hipster band currently onstage and determines that he is in desperate need of anti-psychotics. Or alcohol. Whichever he can find first.

He can’t remember when he last saw Liam and Niall but as he fights his way out of the pulsing mass of bodies they’re nowhere to be seen. Someone gropes Louis’ bum and he whips around to give them the sassing of their lifetime only to find the culprit has been swallowed up into the dance floor.

And Louis loves it. Loves the anonymity he has found covered in potentially-lethal paint, dancing with nameless teenagers in a forgettable barn in the middle of buttfuck nowhere.

Standing here, on his own, with all of his plans lying in shambles around him, Louis is no longer Louis Tomlinson, one third of the most coveted pop group in history. Louis is simply himself.

Simply himself Louis heads off in search of hard liquor before he can get anymore sickeningly sentimental.

There is a lone stall left over in the corner of the barn that Louis spent almost two hours of his precious life cleaning out and converting into a makeshift storeroom for alcohol. He walks inside and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

Two figures are pressed up against the wall, locked in a heated embrace. An embrace so heated that Louis’ worried about the possible ignition of a few remaining hay bales stacked in the corner. Has Harry established any emergency evacuation procedures in the event of a fire?

Louis plans to slip silently back out of the room and let the two continue on uninterrupted in their moment of passion. But, as always, the universe has it out for him and Louis’ plans are derailed.

Derailed by one single moan.

Louis would recognise that moan anywhere. He’s been subjected to that moan almost five times a week for the past four years, whenever chicken or steaks or really any type of meat has been consumed.

“ _Niall_?”

The blonde detaches his lips from a neck. A muscular, manly neck.

“ _Josh_?”

“Hey Louis,” Josh greets him with a grin. “Enjoying the party?”

There is luminous yellow paint on Josh’s face. There is luminous yellow paint smeared across Niall’s crotch.

Louis collapses onto a hay bale. “Oh my god. _Oh my god_!”

“What’s wrong, Lou? Did ya see Harry naked again?” Niall asks earnestly.

Louis sits up straighter. “Harry’s naked?”

Niall smirks and Josh smothers his sniggers against Niall’s shoulder.

“Wait, how did you kn– You know what, never mind that.” Louis reverts back to dramatic wailing. “This is about you, Niall.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” Louis cries, flinging his arms out to gesture between the two of them. “You can’t be gay!”

Josh shoves his way out from in between Niall and the wall. “ _Excuse me_?”

“Cool your jets, Harvey Milk, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, he’s our token straight boy. Niall, you’re our token straight boy!”

“I am?”

“Oh my god,” Louis bemoans. “Oh my god, I’m in an all-gay boyband.”

“But why can’t Liam be the token straight boy?” Niall asks confusedly. Oh the poor innocent little leprechaun.

“Niall,” Louis snorts. “Liam’s favourite pop group member is _Gary Barlow_.”

“Huh.”

“Right, well, if you’ve finished with your grand gay boyband mental breakdown, Louis, we were kind of busy with something,” Josh butts in with a widening of his eyes and a jerk of his head in the direction of the door.

Louis holds up his hands in the universal sign of ‘I shall not cockblock’. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving, just let me grab the vodka before I go.”

He retreats back to the party and stands at the edge of the makeshift dance floor, simultaneously necking his vodka, surveying the masses and praying for a distraction.

It appears the Pope works very quickly indeed.

“Hey.” Louis represses a shiver at the feel of Harry’s hot breath on his neck. “What’s wrong, Little Twink? You look a little off.”

“Sexuality crisis.”

“Really?” Harry sounds genuinely shocked. “I thought you already knew you were gay.”

Louis turns around and smacks him across the chest. “Not my sexuality crisis, you cretin! I just walked in on Niall and Josh in a, uh, _compromising_ position.”

“And that’s a problem?” Harry scrunches up his face, looking for all the world like a toddler in deep concentration.

“Yes that’s a problem!” Louis explodes.

“…because you’re in love with Niall.” Harry concludes slowly, painfully, turning his question into a statement of fact.

“ _What_?” Louis smacks him across the chest yet again. Maybe he should just keep his hand there, palm flat and moulded against hot, hard muscle. For convenience. Yes. “No! I couldn’t care less about Niall’s love life except for the fact that he’s our token straight boy.”

“Token straight boy?”

“Yes, Harry, keep up! Niall is our token straight boy, and our token straight boy is now gay!” Louis fists his hands in the material of Harry’s once white t-shirt and pulls. In order to help communicate the gravity of the situation. Yes. “I am in an _all gay boyband_ , Harry.”

Harry giggles at him. “I’m not really seeing the problem here Little Twink, although apparently there is one. But either way, there’s not much you can do about it tonight, is there?” Harry’s big hands close around Louis’ hips and squeeze once. “Dance with me.”

Louis blinks at him. “You’re drunk, Harold.”

Harry steps closer, hands sliding around to frame the small of Louis’ back. “Not really.”

“Well then I’m drunk.”

“Works for me.” And with a dirty grin Harry is hauling him into the throng.

Once they’re situated in the packed middle of the floor Harry grips tight to Louis’ waist and begins moving to the music. He’s in no way elegant, in fact he kind of looks like a giraffe enduring electroshock therapy. But even still, the rest of the crowd seems to slow down around him and Louis is left with nothing but glowing green eyes and two burning palm prints at his sides.

Louis doesn’t know what to do with his hands, he feels sluggish and stupid and he’s determined to blame it on the vodka. He places his fingers gingerly against Harry’s shoulders.

Every time the bass line changes Harry dances a little closer and Louis’ hands somehow make their way up to Harry’s neck, his pale skin tacky with sweat and pink paint. Pink paint that Louis put there. He pushes his fingers in, smearing his paint into Harry’s pores and hoping some small trace might be absorbed into Harry’s bloodstream.

Harry presses forward and their chests bump together.

Wet lips slide from Louis’ jaw up to his temple.

“You have a bright orange handprint on your arse,” Harry rumbles right into Louis’ ear. “Did you know?”

Louis shakes his head, nosing along Harry’s collarbone.

“Who put it there, Little Twink?” Harry doesn’t give him any time to answer. “Was it Liam?” he growls.

Liam? What? Louis moves to pull back and try to ascertain what the hell is going on but Harry’s grip on him tightens, unforgiving fingers sliding down to his hips and drawing him in closer.

“I can check, you know. Find out if you’re lying.”

“H-How?” Louis hiccups. Definitely the vodka.

“We have the same size hands,” Harry replies, low and slow and deliberate.

Louis freezes and Harry freezes with him. Then Louis breathes in deep, his thumbs skating up the sides of Harry’s neck, pressing quick into the hinges of his jaw and coming to rest on the soft skin behind his ears. Louis waits.

Harry rubs a single circle into the bone at Louis’ hip and then peels his hand away. One tiny eternity later Harry’s warm palm is cupping Louis’ bum.

Fuck everything.

Who was Louis kidding? There was never any third hand in his argument.

Louis groans and drops his head onto Harry’s shoulder with a heavy thump.

He _likes_ Harry _fucking_ Styles.

In an instant Harry’s got both his massive paws on Louis’ bum, fingers digging into meaty flesh and propelling Louis forward. Their hips slot together and Louis’ hands fly up to Harry’s curls, holding on tight.

Harry gets them moving again, settling into a hot, lazy rhythm as he pants into Louis’ hair.

Louis can’t help himself, not when he’s buzzed on alcohol and drunk on the feel of Harry’s skin, the sound of Harry in his ear and the heady mix of sweat and paint fumes and heat hanging in the air around them. He nudges Harry’s knees apart and slips his thigh into the gap left behind. He grinds down hard, rubs his crotch against Harry’s hip and pushes his bum into Harry’s big hands.

“ _Shit_ ,” Harry whimpers, nipping at Louis’ earlobe.

Louis tugs at the strands between his fingers and Harry _whines_.

“Harry!”

A shrill voice crashes into Louis’ consciousness and Harry jerks backwards.

He turns his head to find a tanned, leggy, brunette _woman_ less than one metre away from them. He’s going to murder this bitch.

“C-Caroline, hey,” Harry mumbles, and Louis is satisfied to see that he looks as out of it as Louis feels.

“Happy Birthday, babes!”

“Er, thanks,” is Harry’s slow reply.

Caroline reaches out and drags someone to her side. “This is Adam.”

Harry flicks his eyes between the two and looks completely befuddled by the presence of this random stranger. “Um, hi?”

“Hey, mate,” Adam replies warmly. “Happy birth–”

“Introduce me to your friend, Harry!” Caroline steamrolls over the top of him. She waits approximately half a nanosecond before sticking her hand out towards Louis, with what Louis assumes to be her most charming grin plastered on her lips and recognition swimming in her eyes. “I’m Caroline Flack, and you are…”

“I’m impatient, and we were in the middle of something,” Louis snaps. “Goodbye, Caroline.”

He gets one gratifying look at Caroline’s shocked face before he’s tugging a guffawing Harry further into the dancing horde.

“Oh my god, that was brilliant!” Harry cackles. “Did you see her face? Now I’m not sure who’s was better, your face or hers.”

“Oi!” Louis exclaims indignantly. “I’m still annoyed at you about that.” He pushes up onto the very tips of his toes to speak directly into Harry’s ear. “And I still need to punish you.”

Harry’s gulp is audible.

“So,” Louis says, drawing back again and making Harry pout. “That was the infamous Caroline Flack, huh? The girl we have to thank for your obsession with One Direction.”

Harry snorts and shakes his head. “That was she.”

“Was that her new boy-toy?”

“Dunno,” Harry shrugs, as unconcerned as always.

“Well it sure didn’t take her long to leave you.”

Harry stutters out a breath and goes completely still.

He removes his hands from where they’d found their way back to Louis’ hips and then reaches up to gently pull Louis’ fingers out of his hair. He takes two steps back, away from Louis.

“Harry, what–”

Louis cuts himself off when Harry looks up. He looks like he’s aged 10 years in 10 seconds, the angle of the light on his face showing the deep shadows under his eyes. The skin around his mouth is taught and pale, his plush lips pulled in to a hard, tight line. But his eyes, his eyes are the worst. His eyes look haunted.

Louis reaches his hands out but Harry backs away. The last thing he sees is indescribable hurt marring Harry’s pretty face. And then he’s gone, melted away into the crowd.

Louis stands rooted to the spot. He finally made Harry Styles crack.


	9. Harry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Life got in the way for a minute there :) xxx

_Well it sure didn’t take her long to leave you._

The words keep bouncing around Harry’s head like a ball in an empty squash court, rebounding off walls until he can’t tell one echo from the next. He tries to lock them down, tries to hide them away, but it’s hard when all of his little boxes now lie in ruins.

And he’d been so prepared. He'd had a mental checklist ready and waiting for his birthday.

1\. Wake up. 

2\. Eat breakfast. 

3\. Get ready. 

4\. Collect supplies. 

5\. Meet Zayn. 

6\. Prepare barn. 

7\. Don’t think. 

8\. Party hard. 

9\. Black out.

If he had just stuck to the plan then everything would be fine. He would be halfway to wasted, dancing with Zayn, and not _thinking._

As it is, Harry’s pushing his way through the barn, hurrying to find an exit because the air inside is too hot, too thick with paint fumes and sweat, and he just needs a minute to breathe.

Just a minute and he’ll be okay.

He swings out of a side door and puts his head down, striding across the packed-dirt parking lot before anyone can recognise him and engage him in conversation or drunken well wishes. He makes it past the line of cars and keeps going, off the track and into a field, counting his footsteps as they swish through the overgrown paddock. When he gets to the boundary line he climbs over the three-board fence, the faded white paint peeling off under his fingernails, and hits the ground on the other side at a jog. He finally slows once he’s through the tree line, coming to a stop and leaning heavily against the thick trunk of an old hazel tree, sliding down until he’s sat amongst the leaf litter on the forest floor.

Harry breathes deep and concentrates hard to stop himself from thinking. He focuses on the rough bark against his back and the breeze that whispers across his skin, cooling sweat and paint and spilt drinks. If he squeezes his eyes hard enough he can hear the faint thuds of a heavy baseline seeping over the landscape.

Before the sensible part of his brain can convince him not to, because experience has shown that this isn’t going to help anything, Harry’s struggling his phone out of his pocket with clammy palms. He scrolls through his contacts without thinking it through and swipes at the all too familiar number. All too familiar because he’s always the one doing the dialling, it’s never the other way around.

She picks up on the eighth ring.

“Harry?”

“Hey Gems,” he replies, biting back a bitter laugh when his voice comes out clear and steady. He wonders when it became second nature to pull all his defences up, when it was that he became so good at pretending.

“D’you realise how late it is? Why’re you calling?” His sister sounds sleepy and disorientated, like she can’t fathom why her little brother might be calling her on this particular day.

And there it is, her confusion providing the answer to a question he shouldn’t have to ask.

“Sorry,” Harry sighs, suddenly all too tired for this. “I just wanted to talk a bit. I can call back some other time.”

“Well you’ve woken me up now, haven’t you? May as well plod on with it,” she grumbles good-naturedly. “So what’s on your mind, butthole?”

Harry can hear the smile in her voice, and it has him choking on a sob. Because she honestly just doesn’t know, doesn’t realise what she’s doing and how every new word is puncturing another little tear in Harry’s lungs. And that’s even worse than malicious intent, because if she purposely ignored his birthday that’d mean she at least _remembered_ his birthday.

“Nothing specific. Just – how’ve you been? Are those Frenchies treating you right? Do I need to come over there and shove frogs’ legs down anyone’s windpipe?”

Her laugh sounds like his, short and sharp and loud before it’s muffled by something, probably the back of her hand.

And then she’s off, hardly pausing for breath, regaling him with story after story; about her funny Norwegian lecturer and the time she dropped her umbrella in the Seine and how her weird roommate has taken up sketching in the nude.

Harry concentrates on her voice, cataloguing the way it gets higher when Gemma’s trying not to laugh at her own jokes and the way her mumbling is a dead giveaway that she’s biting her nails, a habit she’d swore to quit when he last saw her.

He’s almost managed to convince himself that he’s fine when Gemma cuts herself off, halfway through an anecdote about a tourist and a parking meter.

“Harry, why can I hear both the mooing of a cow and some form of truly horrible house music? That can’t be normal. Where the bloody hell are you?”

Harry looks up at the sky, locating Sirius and the Little Dipper before he opens his mouth to reply.

“ ‘M at my birthday party, Gem.”

There’s a long silence, long enough that Harry begins to wonder if the connection has dropped out somewhere over the English Channel, before he hears a barely audible ‘shit’.

“Haz, _shit_ , Harry I am so so sorry.”

“It’s fine, Gemma,” Harry murmurs, barely above a whisper, because this conversation suddenly feels too brittle and he doesn’t want to be the one to break it.

“No, it’s not fine, Haz. And god, I am _so_ sorry, but I got you a birthday present, I swear, and I’ll send it as soon as I can, I just don’t have any _time_ and I had this massive exam the other day which was worth 65 percent of my grade. Like, 65 percent! Who the fuck even _does_ that? And my friend was sick and I knew it was coming up, of course I _knew_ , I just –”

“It’s fine, Gemma,” Harry repeats, more firmly this time, because he doesn’t need a laundry list of all the things that take priority over him. “You’re busy, I get it, and it’s fine.”

He can hear her biting her nails again.

“Well, um, what did mum get you? Bet it was something great, right?”

Something aches deep beneath his ribcage.

“You know what, Gem, I have to go now, actually. Being a bad host and all that.” Harry stands abruptly and starts heading back towards the fence. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, yeah of course, go, sorry I kept you so long. I hope you had a great day, love. And I really am so sorry, Harry. But, happy birthday, yeah?”

This time he doesn’t even bother holding back his derisive snort.

“Right.”

Harry hangs up, then thinks better of it and turns his phone off entirely.

He strides back to the barn with new purpose, nothing on his mind but the resolve to get completely, utterly, black-out drunk.

*******

Half an hour and half a bottle of Russian Standard later, Harry’s well on his way to needing his stomach pumped. He doesn’t particularly care. It’s not like it’ll be the first time anyway.

He’s not 100 percent certain, but he thinks the body lined up against his might be female. He can’t be sure because he stopped paying attention to his various dance partners about 4 shots ago, the only thing important to him now being the glass bottle clutched tightly in his fist, condensation dripping down to his elbow, its refreshing coolness long gone leaving only the burn behind.

The person in front of him is blonde and positively filthy, using Harry’s body like it’s their own personal pole. When they turn to face him, hips sliding against his crotch, the boobs confirm his theory and the blue eyes make him want to be sick.

He turns away and washes the bile back down his throat with a deep swig.

When he tips his head back down again he spies them, pressed up close on the crowded dance floor, hands in hair and paint-spattered legs entwined, moving together under the pulsing lights. He pulls away from his soon-to-be-stripper friend, ignoring her petulant protests, and stumbles over to the couple, his ears deaf to the complaints of the people he shoves along the way.

“Zayn! Zaynie! Zaynerrrr!” he slurs, tripping over his own toes and barreling straight into his friend, accidentally but not inconveniently knocking Liam out of the way in the process.

“Whoa there, mate,” Zayn laughs and wraps his arms around Harry’s waist. It’s probably a move to help him back onto his feet but Harry melts into the touch, becoming boneless and useless and letting Zayn take all of his weight. “Well, it certainly looks like you’re having a good night.”

“It’s fucking awful, if I’m honest,” Harry chortles, but Zayn doesn’t appear to notice that he’s not being sarcastic.

“Jesus, Haz, are you chugging straight vodka? Maybe it’s time we switched you to water, yeah?”

Zayn tries prying his fingers from around the glass bottle but Harry won’t let go, reeling back and cradling it against his chest.

“Nooooo!” he whines, and then follows it up with a roared, “It’s my birthday!”

“I know, babe,” Zayn chuckles, reaching out to steady him again, “but you’re going to wish it hadn’t been when you wake up tomorrow.”

Harry slaps his hands away and then grabs onto Zayn’s t-shirt, twisting it between his fingers.

“Zayn, _Zayn_ , I need to akk – aks – _ask_ you something, okay, and it’s very serious, very impotent.” He frowns. “Very _im-port-ant_ , okay?” He follows it up with a hiccup-slash-burp combo.

Zayn nods sincerely and bites at his lips to keep from giggling. It doesn’t work.

Harry continues on regardless.

“Do you love me?”

Zayn blinks at him, fondness and confusion all mixed together in his smile.

“Haz, you’re my best friend in the entire world, you know that,” he says softly, words almost lost to the thrum of the music, bringing a hand up to cup Harry’s cheek.

Harry nods and then shakes his head, because yes, that is true, but also Zayn’s not _getting_ it.

“But do you love me?”

“Yes, Harry, of course I love you, why are you even –”

The rest of his sentence is cut off as Harry slams into him, smashing their lips together and licking into his mouth, twisting his free hand into Zayn’s hair to anchor him there.

It’s not pretty. It’s a hot clash of teeth and tongues and spit. It’s biting and needy and desperate. It’s Harry swallowing Zayn’s surprised yelp as he pushes in further, taking more, pleading harder.

It’s a world away from gentle, the furthest thing from intimate, but at least it’s _something_.

Harry just needs something.

When he pulls back his lips feel numb and his chest feels heavy but he doesn’t feel better.

Zayn just stares at him with wide eyes before his gaze shifts to something over Harry’s shoulder. Harry turns around to find Liam still standing there looking at his shoes, looking at his drink, looking everywhere but at Harry and Zayn.

“Uh,” he coughs. “I’ll just – I’m going to – Yep.” He nods once to himself and then he’s splitting off into the crowd, swallowed up before Zayn can take two steps towards him.

Zayn turns back to Harry, eyes still wide but now swimming with countless emotions, although hurt and bewilderment seem to be winning out amongst the rest.

“What the fuck was that, Haz?”

“I’m sorry!” Harry gasps out, breathing ragged. “I’m sorry, Z, I didn’t – I don’t know why I did that. I just – I needed someone and I saw you and I thought – I’m so sorry.” He reaches up to grip at his hair, realising too late that he’s still holding his vodka bottle and knocking himself in the temple with it. “I can fix this, yeah? I’ll go fix it and it’ll be fine, it’ll be –”

Zayn shakes his head, reaching out with both hands, placating. “Hey, Harry, slow down, alright?” He stares hard at Harry, searching his eyes. “You’re upset. What’s wrong? What happened?”

Harry backs up quick. “Nothing, it’s fine, I’m fine, Louis just said something and then –”

Zayn’s face turns stony. “Louis did this? What did he say? Where is that annoying twatbag?”

“He said – said that – doesn’t matter – I’m fine,” Harry repeats, shaking his head back and forth until the world starts tilting off its’ axis. “I’m okay, I’m fine, I’m gonna make it better, gonna go get Liam.”

“Harry– ”

“Just stay.” Harry staggers forward once more until he’s clinging to Zayn’s neck, gazing pleadingly into Zayn’s four blurry eyes. “Just stay right here, okay? _Please?_ Don’t leave. Don’t leave me, Zayn.”

He kisses Zayn once more, closed mouthed and beseeching, because Zayn’s started looking at him with pity etched into the corners of his lips. And Harry knows what pity means.

Pity comes before the final blow. Pity comes before goodbye.

Harry turns and runs.


	10. Harry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should've mentioned before that the characters and opinions expressed in this _fictional story_ are not my own and are completely _fictional._

The sudden darkness of the farmyard is disconcerting after so much halogen and flashing, and Harry lurches around blindly, groping at shadowed figures, trying to distinguish Beckham hair and puppy eyes from countless other blurred faces.

He needs Liam. Needs to find Liam and take him back to Zayn and fix things between them so that Zayn won’t hate him. Won’t hate him and leave him.

Rounding the corner to the west side of the barn Harry careens headlong into something small and solid, and only a hasty grab at a window box stops him from falling on his ass. Or his face. Or both at the same time, he’s certainly drunk enough to manage it.

“Harry?”

He groans and keeps stumbling on.

“Harry, wait!”

“Go back to the party, Louis.”

“Like hell I will, you can’t even walk straight!” Louis says indignantly, and Harry feels warm fingers wrapping around his elbow before he yanks his arm out of reach.

“I’m fine,” he insists.

“You’re obviously not fine,” Louis scoffs and Harry clenches his jaw. “Look, something’s wrong with you and–”

That has Harry finally turning to face Louis, whirling around suddenly and catching Louis so off guard that he has to skid to a stop to avoid knocking them both off their feet.

“Really, Louis? And what’s that?” Harry asks quietly, voice shaking with barely controlled emotion. “What’s so _wrong_ with me?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Harold, you know that,” Louis replies flippantly.

And in just a second Harry forgets about kissing Zayn, and about needing to find Liam, and about trying desperately to fix what he so effectively cocked up. He forgets about everything but the boy in front of him as white-hot rage soaks into every pore, dark and seething. Because Harry _doesn’t_ know that, he doesn’t know _anything_ when it comes to Louis Tomlinson. Louis’ spent the entire day poking and prodding at him, purposely winding Harry up for sport, pulling him in so many different directions that Harry’s dizzy with it.

So no, Harry doesn’t know what Louis means, he rarely knows what Louis means and he’s sick of it. He’s so fucking sick of being someone else’s chew toy.

“I quit, Louis, you win.”

“What?” He has the nerve to sound genuinely confused and Harry laughs mirthlessly in his face.

“Don’t be a prat. You’re way too smart to play dumb, Louis,” he sneers.

The cold night air is seeping its way into Harry’s bloodstream, not enough to sober him up but more than plenty to have him devolving from a sloppy drunk to an angry drunk. He’s pissed, in both forms of the word, and it’s making him feel reckless. The cocktail of adrenalin and testosterone and alcohol forming in his brain has him wanting to hurt something just as much as Harry himself is hurting.

And maybe Louis just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or maybe he’s had this coming to him since the first snarky syllable left his lips in Harry’s kitchen.

“I can assure you, I have no fucking idea what you’re on about,” Louis snaps back, never one to take anything lying down.

Harry crowds right into Louis’ space, toe to toe, towering over him, reminiscent of their earlier exchange on the dance floor. But the heat between them is different this time and the air is crackling with aggression, creating a tension so thick Harry can almost taste it.

“Liam told me _all_ about you, you know. About how everything’s a _game_ to you, about how you like to _play_ with people,” he says lowly, spitting words like venom. Louis’ face turns paler in the dim light of the moon, and Harry wonders distantly if anyone else has ever called Louis out on his bullshit. “Well I’m done playing, Louis, I’m _done_. You win.”

He was expecting Louis to look triumphant, or smug, or possibly even indifferent. What he was not expecting was for Louis to look as if someone just pulled the rug clean out from under him. His stunned reaction only infuriates Harry further, because Louis has been deliberately ribbing Harry all day long and so he has no fucking right to be so shocked when Harry starts hitting back.

“Harry, no, I – ”

“Don’t!” Harry seethes. “Don’t do that, don’t deny it. Because no matter what you think of me, Louis, I’m not a fucking idiot.”

“Look, Harry,” Louis starts, and Harry can’t tell if he’s placating or pleading, “you’re really upset right now, and I don’t know what happened but – ”

“You don’t know what happened!?” Harry roars, decimating any last reserves of self-restraint he had. He feels out of control, feels wild, like an animal that’s been caged in for years just broke free. He feels like there’s too much oxygen in his body, like his skin is bubbling with it, and he just wants to shout it all out until there’s nothing left.

“You! _You_ fucking happened, Louis! Everything was perfectly fucking _fine_ before you wandered in and made it your life mission to take the piss out of every single fucking thing about me! But I could handle that, you know. I could take it when you insulted the clothes I wear and the music I listen to and the things I enjoy, the things that make me _who I am_. I could take it and I could laugh it off, because you were _annoying_ , yeah, but I never really believed you were out to _hurt_ me.”

Harry’s beginning to feel sick now, too much liquid in his stomach and not enough air in his lungs making him feel disconnected from his own body. But he can’t stop long enough to regain the feeling in his limbs, can’t plug the torrent of words that keep gushing from his mouth.

“But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You couldn’t just let it lie. You had to keep picking at the scab until it bled, had to keep poking at me until you finally hit a nerve.” Harry illustrates his point by prodding Louis hard in the chest, pressing bruises right into his ribs.

“Well congratulations, Louis.” He pulls back, applauding sardonically. “You got there in the end.”

Louis, for his part, looks horrified, his mouth gaping open and the whites of his eyes glowing in the starlight.

“I didn’t–” he starts weakly, and Harry has to strain to hear him whisper over the thundering pulse in his temples. “I don’t understand. What did I do?”

“I do believe your exact words were,” Harry muses, rubbing a finger over his chin and dragging his vowels like he’s trying to remember, like the sentence isn’t burned into the grey matter of his temporal lobe, “‘well it sure didn’t take her long to leave you’.”

Louis starts shaking his head, mouth beginning to move, but Harry barrels on before he can get defensive.

“And you’re right, Louis. It _didn’t_ take her long to leave me. It never takes _any of them_ long to leave me.”

Something changes in Louis’ face then, his chin raising, his jaw setting, defiance sparking in his irises. “Well then they’re dickheads, Harry, and they’re not good enough for you.”

And Harry cackles, the hysterical sound of it resonating in the frigid air, hanging suspended in the white puffs of his breath. It’s so cold outside but Harry feels like he’s on fire, like he’s burning up with all these words trying to escape their boxes.

“Oh but that’s where you’re so wrong. Because it’s the other way ‘round, Louis. _I’m_ not good enough for anyone.”

“That’s not true!” Louis responds, voice tight and fierce. “I know your family must–”

“ _You_ know my family? You _know_ my _family_?” Harry explodes, caught between furious and incredulous. “Well then, you must _know_ all about how my sister fucked off out of the fucking _country_ the very first chance she got. How I’ve seen her _once_ in the past four years. How we never talk unless I’m the one calling her.”

Harry really shouldn’t be saying this and Louis definitely shouldn’t be hearing this, but Harry is powerless to stop it. It’s like all the little words that he’s been swallowing down for years are now revolting against his body. They’re not just bubbling up, they’re taking over. They’re collecting everything, every thought and every feeling, and spilling them all out into the still darkness.

“You must _know_ how my mum is gone more often than she’s not. How her work is more important than her child. How she couldn’t even stick around long enough to see me turn 18 and how she bought me a fucking _boyband_ to try and replace her.”

Harry feels like he’s a life raft, his mouth a jagged tear, and with every new sentence that pours out of him he’s sinking further into the sea. He doesn’t know how to keep himself afloat anymore.

“And, _obviously_ , you must _know_ that my dad walked out before I could make it to my first day of primary school. That the birthday cards stopped the year I turned 12. And you must _know_ what he said to me, right? What his excuse was? You _know_ that, right Louis?”

“No, I- ” Louis breathes, his syllables shaking.

“He said that London was too _cold_. He said that he needed to live someplace _warmer_. Do you know what that means, Louis? It means that I was worth less than a pair of fucking mittens to him.”

The farmyard is quiet as Harry’s head goes under.

Just as suddenly as they started, all the words stop, and he’s got nothing left to give.

Harry is tired. He just wants to go home.

“Harry–” Louis’ voice is thick and Harry startles backwards, having momentarily forgotten he was there.

His heel catches on a loose rock and he topples to the ground, landing hard on his arse and skinning his palms.

“Harry! Harry, shit, are you okay?”

Something pointed and sharp digs painfully into Harry’s butt cheek and it takes him a minute before he realises what it is.

His car keys.

“I’m fine.”

He pushes up on unsteady feet and wobbles in the direction of the Range Rover.

“Hold on a minute, just where do you think you’re going?” Louis demands, although the signature snark is noticeably absent.

“Home.”

“Uh, no.” He can hear Louis’ little footsteps running to catch up and then overtaking, trying to block his path. “No you’re most definitely not. You’re completely plastered!”

“ ‘M fine,” Harry mumbles, shoving past.

“No! Harry, stop. You can’t drive like this, you’ll kill yourself!”

“It’s a bit too late to start acting like you care, Louis. We both know you don’t.”

Louis jumps at him, latches both hands onto Harry’s arm, his fingernails biting into Harry’s skin, and digs his heels into the dirt. Harry reacts instinctively, twisting away and jerking his elbow out to the side, slamming it into Louis’ ribcage in the process.

Louis hits the ground with a shocked yell and Harry makes a break for his car. He wrenches the door open and flings himself inside, jamming the keys into the ignition and slamming into gear.

He puts his foot down on the accelerator and just _goes_.


	11. Louis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: descriptions of a panic attack (or what is very close to a panic attack), mentions of vomiting. if there's anything else let me know.

It’s like he’s underwater.

There’s this ringing in his ears, like he’s swimming too close to the bottom of the deep end, and he watches the two red taillights move like bubbles floating to the surface, growing smaller and smaller as they get further away from him.

Louis’ sprawled in the dirt with his lungs aching, and he’s not sure whether it’s from having the wind knocked right out of him or from the look on Harry’s face as he ran towards the car. Harry looked wretched. He looked bitter and hurt and _angry_. And underneath all of that, he just looked confused, like a 5-year-old boy who couldn’t understand why his dad was packing a suitcase and walking away.

It’s the memory of Harry’s wide, glassy eyes that has Louis rolling over onto his knees and struggling back onto his feet. He needs to pause for a moment or two, hands braced on his thighs so he can catch his breath, but then he’s lifting his head and staggering back towards the barn.

Inside the party is still in full swing, flashing lights and pounding music, and it all feels fifty shades of wrong when Harry’s somewhere else, drunk and alone and _operating a motor vehicle holy shit this is so not good_.

Louis has no fucking clue what to do and he’s never felt so desperately helpless in his entire life. He can’t go after Harry himself because he’s not exactly sober either. Also, the last he saw of his ride was when it was riding away from him. He can’t call the police, obviously, because Harry’s body chemistry is currently made up of 60% vodka and if the cops pick him up now he’ll be locked away, never to see the light of day again. But Louis can’t do _nothing at all_ , because if Harry’s not stopped he could kill somebody. He could kill himself. And then the only light he’ll ever see is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

So Louis does what he’s always done after he’s made a mess that he can’t clean up on his own. He goes to find Liam.

He pushes through the crowd, searching for a familiar face, but everyone looks the same when they’re covered in luminous paint, and the lights keep cutting in and out to the beat of the music, turning the world into some kind of surreal stop motion animation. People appear and then disappear just as quickly, and Louis’ getting all turned around, stumbling in circles. But the more time he wastes fumbling around in the dark, the more likely it is for Harry to get seriously fucked up, and the closer Louis gets to a full blown panic attack.

This isn’t working.

Louis spots a wall and makes a beeline towards it, shoving people out of his way. He has this vague notion that if he walks around the edge of the barn he’ll eventually make it to the stage and from there he might be able to get high enough to spot Liam or Niall, or fuck, even Zayn.

He gets one hand on the wall to keep himself steady and moving in a straight line, and then he’s off. It’s a pretty decent plan, and Louis would pride himself on his rational thinking if he wasn’t scared out of his goddamn mind.

His hands are so far beyond shaking that it’s like his whole body is vibrating, and he feels constantly on the verge of throwing up, but he pushes it all down and concentrates on getting help. He can have a mental breakdown later when he knows Harry is safe and whole and not flying through a windscreen, oh _holy fuck._

His breath starts coming in short, sharp gasps and he has to stop, has to gulp in a lungful of air and then hold it to keep himself from hyperventilating. He gives himself five seconds and then continues walking.

Louis just about cries with relief when he finds Liam and Niall huddled in one corner of the barn.

“Oh god, oh _thank fuck_ , Liam, I need your help,” Louis breathes, voice wobbling.

“Not now, Lou,” Liam says dully, and next to him Niall is shaking his head.

“Yes fucking now!” Louis sounds high-pitched and hysterical, even to his own ears, and that seems to get through to Liam because he’s straightening up and pushing off his hay bale in a heartbeat.

“What’s wrong?” he demands, but before Louis can begin to explain something solid and boney is barreling into his side and slamming him against the wall.

“You motherfucking bag of tiny monkey _dicks_.”

Somewhere, way in the back of his brain, Louis is reluctantly impressed.

But the larger part of his brain is more concerned with Zayn growling right into his face.

“What the _hell_ did you do to him, you gigantic, insufferable fuckbucket.”

Liam’s making noises off to the side somewhere, but Zayn ignores him in favour of shoving Louis harder into the wall, both hands fisted in the front of Louis’ shirt, nose pressed right up against Louis’ cheek.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him!” Louis insists. “I didn’t know!”

“What did you do?” Zayn grits out, snorting like an enraged bull.

Louis feels a hand wriggle between their bodies, trying to push Zayn back, but Zayn’s not budging an inch.

“I said something about his ex-girlfriend leaving him. It was meant to be a joke,” Louis explains, very quickly. “And then I might’ve mentioned his family.”

Zayn seems almost stunned for a second, his jaw swinging open and his hands dropping from Louis’ chest, but then he pulls the anger back and looks even more furious than before, his fists flying up to Louis’ collarbone.

“You _fucking_ –”

“I know, okay! I know!” Louis yells over the top of him. “But right now what I am doesn’t matter because we have to go find Harry!”

Zayn doesn’t appear to be listening to him, too focused on trying to find an adjective horrible enough to befit Louis. Liam, on the other hand, is paying attention.

“Find him?” he asks, just a little bit frantically, still trying to pry Zayn off of Louis. “What do you mean ‘find him’? Where did Harry go?”

“He took off in the Range Rover!” Louis screams desperately, because that is the point, that is the most important thing.

That gets Zayn’s attention.

“He _what_.”

“We have to go, we have to _go_.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you _stop him_.”

There’s no space left between them now, even Liam’s hand got squeezed out, and Zayn’s pressing Louis so hard into the wall that he can feel their ribs knocking together. Between that and Harry winding him earlier and the panic clawing up his chest, Louis can’t _breathe._

“Have – have to –”

Spots start popping and fizzing behind his eyes.

“Go, go, we need –”

Suddenly Zayn is gone and Niall is in front of him and he’s sagging against his friend’s back.

Zayn’s struggling and Liam’s saying something, his jaw set, but Louis can’t hear it over the pounding of blood in his ears so he concentrates on breathing, shallow and shaky, across Niall’s damp shoulder blade.

Zayn turns away but Liam’s got him by the collar of his shirt, his other hand palm up in the air. Zayn thrusts something at him, glinting metallic under the strobe lights still bouncing around the barn, and Louis drags himself off Niall, starts fighting for the door. Because they’re going now, they’re going to get Harry.

They burst out of a side door, the four of them falling all over each other, before Zayn gets his feet under him and goes sprinting off towards the parking lot. He leads them to a car, something dark and sleek, and climbs into the passenger seat. Liam gets behind the wheel while Niall and Louis scramble into the back. The car peels out of the lot, gravel spraying up behind it, and flies down the driveway, bouncing over potholes.

Liam’s knuckles glow white under the faint light coming off the dashboard.

They reach the road.

“Which way did he go?” Zayn demands.

“I don’t know,” Louis whispers in reply.

Zayn whirls around and almost dives into the back seat. “You don’t fucking _know_? How the _fuck_ are we supposed to find him, then? Jesus, you really are good for noth– ”

“Hey,” Liam interrupts, calm but stern. “Louis, did Harry say where he was heading?”

“H-Home.”

“Okay.” Liam flicks on his indicator and pulls the car to the left.

“What if he made it onto the freeway?” Zayn says, his voice quiet and breaking.

No one answers him. Louis’ stomach pitches and rolls.

Niall reaches across the seat and finds Louis’ hand in the dark.

They drive on in silence, the tension in the car so heavy it’s like they’re breathing it, filling their lungs with fear, and the further they travel towards the freeway, the thicker the air becomes until Louis’ almost choking on it, swallowing compulsively.

“What’s that?” Liam’s voice comes so suddenly Niall jumps.

There’s a branch lying on the road up ahead, broken in two, one of the halves splintered into pieces. And beyond that, on the side of the road, headlights a bright slash in the darkness, is a car.

“Fuck,” Niall breathes.

It’s up against a tree, lighting up the bark, casting crazy shadows in the woods around it.

They pull up behind it and Louis shoves open his door, falls out of his seat.

Zayn’s in such a hurry that he forgot to take off his seatbelt and he’s hanging half out of his door, fighting the strap, getting himself even more tangled in his panic. Louis grabs his arm, unwinds the belt, and pulls him towards the car, his hand staying fisted in Zayn’s shirt.

They run together.

It’s the Range Rover.

And it’s empty.

“What?” Louis says, dumbstruck, hopeful and dreading and confused all at once. His heart doesn’t know which way to go, down to his toes or up to his throat.

The front left tire has been blown out, the hubcap lying forlorn in the grass at the side of the road, and the bonnet has crumpled inwards on impact with the tree. The engine is still running, the keys are in the ignition, and the driver’s side door is closed. But there’s no one inside.

“The bumper’s barely even dented,” says Liam’s voice from the front of the car. “He mustn’t have been going very fast when he hit.”

“So where the fuck is he then?” Niall asks urgently, peering into the back seat.

“Harry?” Zayn calls into the woods around them. Birds startle, fly from their branches, and his voice echoes. “ _Haz_?”

Further into the trees, someone retches.

Louis’ rushing towards the sound before he’s even given conscious thought to moving his feet.

There, in the woods, in the dark, crouched at the base of a skinny, new growth tree, is Harry. Alive, in one piece, and vomiting.

“Holy _shit_ , Hazza.” Zayn throws himself to the dirt next to Harry and wraps his arms around Harry’s chest. “When you’re done being sick I’m going to _kill_ you.”

Harry groans and heaves.

When he’s done he drags the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Zayn?” he wonders, voice grating like broken glass. “I think I forgot where I parked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a lot of stuff i wanted to say to you guys, but i didn't want to clog up the notes for people who weren't that interested. if you are interested then it's [here](http://withlungslikethese.tumblr.com/post/116029403956/chapter-11-stuff-i-couldnt-put-in-the-notes). but mostly, thank you to every single beautiful person who left me an encouraging comment. sorry it took so long.


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